A care worker has been jailed for sexually assaulting two schoolgirls whom he groomed with cannabis and ’legal highs’.

Daniel Kelly tried to force a 14-year-old girl to kiss him and he climbed into bed naked with a 15-year-old girl before rubbing himself against her.

He also kissed her in a sexual way on another occasion and told her that she had always had feelings for him, to which she replied ’No, I don’t’.

He held parties at his former home in Newton Abbot where he let them get very drunk or stoned before he tried to kiss them.

Kelly, aged 35, of Mallock Road, Torquay, admitted sexual activity with a child and was found guilty of sexual assault and inciting sexual activity at a trial at Exeter Crown Court last month.

He was cleared of two counts of rape, one of inciting sexual activity with a child, and one of sexual assault, some of which related to a third girl.

He was jailed for two years by Judge Erik Salomonsen, who told him: ‘The evidence from the young witnesses at the trial was that you were relaxed about children smoking and taking cannabis at your home.

‘Instead of prohibiting the taking of herbal highs, you allowed it and joined in yourself. The aggravating features of these cases are an element of grooming and the disparity in age.

‘The probation report raises concern that you appear to regard yourself as something of a victim and say one of the girl’s parents were relaxed about drug taking and drinking.

‘The report says you are in denial about the nature of the grooming that formed part of your offence.’

During a trial in early August the two girls said Kelly had repeatedly tried to kiss them when they were at his house in Newton Abbot in the late 2000s.

One said she woke to find him in bed behind her and could feel his ’clammy skin’ rubbing against her rhythmically. He apologised the next day and blamed his behaviour on drugs, to which the girl replied that he should not treat her ’as a sex toy’.

Kelly admitted kissing one girl but told the jury that none of the other allegations were true.

Mr Joss Ticehurst, defending, said he now accepts responsibility and has shown true remorse. He said: ‘There is no question that his use of drugs had an appalling effect on him and consequence was this appalling behaviour.'