A BUS driver who indecently assaulted a wheelchair bound woman on her way back from a Christmas party has been jailed for nine months.

Keith Allcock, aged 45, of Campbell Street, Farnworth, was sentenced at Bolton Crown Court for assaulting the 34-year-old disabled passenger in the back of his Ring and Ride bus.

Sentencing Allcock, a married man with two daughters, Judge Clement Goldstone QC said yesterday that the offence amounted to "a gross breach of trust."

He said: "It is very sad for you and your family and also for the courts, that a man of 45 should find himself in your position." He added that the offence was so serious only a custodial sentence was appropriate.

Allcock, who was a driver for the Ring and Ride service -- which provides transport for vulnerable and disabled people -- was convicted more than two weeks ago by a Bolton Crown Court jury sitting at Bury Magistrates. Sentencing had been adjourned until yesterday for a report to be compiled.

Judge Goldstone said Allcock had deliberately organised his schedule so that he took the victim home last although normally she should have been dropped off first.

He said: "When you dropped her off at home you told her to forget it happened. Unfortunately for you she did not, instead she was courageous enough to report it within days." Allcock pleaded not guilty throughout the trial and defence barrister Jeffrey Samuels said he continued to maintain his innocence.

Mr Samuels appealed for clemency as Allcock had been a bus driver for more than 10 years and had now lost his career and his good character.

He said the conviction has caused Allcock "great stress and embarrassment".

The judge ordered that the sentence should be suspended after Allcock had served half of the time in prison. He accepted that the offence was an "isolated blemish" on a life that had been "otherwise exemplary".