A MAN who subjected a nine-year-old girl to a sickening catalogue of sexual abuse has failed to convince Appeal Court judges he was wrongly convicted.

Simon Paul Anthony Goode, now 22, of Malton, was convicted of attempted rape, assault on a child under 13 by penetration, sexual assault and causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity at York Crown Court in May 2007.

He was sentenced to a total of four years’ detention in a young offender’s institution.

Goode, who was living at Quarry Hill, Appleton-le-Street, when charged, was not represented at London’s Criminal Appeal Court yesterday, but his lawyers submitted written grounds of appeal to Mr Justice Langstaff and Judge Elgan Edwards on his behalf.

Arguing that permission to appeal should be granted, they complained that the trial judge had not summarised the case to the jury fairly and had given flawed legal directions.

However, Judge Edwards said no fault could be found in the judge’s handling of the trial and refused Goode’s application.

He told the court the offences occurred when Goode was 17 or 18, when he and others were playing games in a field. Goode, who had been of previous good character, had denied any involvement in the abuse.

As The Press reported at the time, Goode cried as he was jailed for four years.

He was also placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life, banned from being with anyone under 16 for five years and barred from ever working with children.

He was also banned from going to the girl’s Ryedale village when released from jail. He was 17 when his crimes began.

At the start of the trial, Simon Hickey, prosecuting, described how Goode used the pretext of “innocent games” to take the girl away from her friends and sexually attack her.

He abused her in a cornfield, a back garden or patio and kissed her on the mouth in an adult way.

On one occasion, he had told her to take her pants off.

When she objected, he threatened to do “something worse” which would hurt her, so she took her underwear off.