A disgraced soldier who confessed to a series of sex attacks on a nine-year-old girl has been locked up for three years.
Bombardier Riaan Hardy preyed on the child for more than two months in 2009.
The 35-year-old was only caught last year when the victim told her mum after she noticed her daughter had been self-harming.
Hardy, based at RM Condor near Arbroath, returned to the High Court in Glasgow having earlier admitted using lewd and libidinous behaviour towards the girl.
Lord Kinclaven told him the jail term had been reduced from four and a half years due to the guilty plea.
The judge said a victim statement completed by the girl’s mother had shown the “emotional and physical impact” suffered by her daughter.
Hardy, who is being supported by his partner, showed no emotion as he was led handcuffed to the cells.
The abuse occurred between July 1 and September 3 2009 at a house in Arbroath.
This also involved Hardy making the child watch pornographic material.
The soldier told his victim not to tell anyone.
But in late 2014, the girl, by now a teenager, finally revealed to her mum she had been self-harming because of the torment.
Police spoke to Hardy at his army base and he later went on to make “full and frank admissions”.
Frances Connor, defending, said Hardy had an “unblemished” military record which involved tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The court heard he now suffers from “chronic” post traumatic stress disorder.