TWO Winchester brothers are today behind bars after being jailed for child sex abuse forty years ago.

David Elkins molested girls as young as four, while Anthony Elkins was sentenced for an attack which started decades of trauma.

Victims told Winchester Crown Court how the abuse in the 1960s and 70s had torn apart their lives, with some attempting suicide and suffering addiction, mental illness and self-harm.

MORE: Victims describe decades of trauma after Elkins abuse >>

David Elkins, of Battery Hill, Winchester, was jailed for 14 years for attacks against three girls.

The former bus driver, 60, groomed one victim for several years, taking pornographic photographs and “buying her silence” with sweets and money, the judge said.

Anthony Elkins, 69, of St Catherine’s Road, Winchester, was given two years in jail for sexually assaulting her between the ages of 13 and 14.

That was the first time the girl was abused before years of attacks by David Elkins, the court heard.

She made allegations against six Elkins brothers. Three were acquitted while another died before the trial.

The case came to a dramatic halt when Anthony Elkins suffered a panic attack in the dock.

He was carried out by five security guards and treated by paramedics on the floor.

The case resumed after nearly an hour, with Elkins watching from the press bench.

David Reid, mitigating, pleaded for leniency on the basis of Elkins’ poor health and “good character” since the incident.

Elkins, a steward at Winchester City Football Club, is “hard-working” and cares for his sick wife, Mr Reid added.

David Elkins was aged between 14 and 20 at the time of most offences, the court heard. Robert Bryan, mitigating, said it would be “grossly unfair” to sentence him as an adult.

He said: “The man you’re dealing with is not the man who did these things, but also was barely a man.”

The court heard David Elkins was in his mid-20s during one attack, when he pinned down and attacked a girl as a brother guarded the door.

Putting the pair behind bars, Judge Susan Evans QC described the “life-changing” impact of the abuse.

She described one as “cruel and brutal” and said in another David Elkins showed “elements of cruelty” as he verbally and physically abused one of the girls.

She said: “You may have put your offending behind you. Your victims, unsurprisingly, will not have been able to do the same.”

Both will be put on the Sex Offender Register, serving half their sentences before being released on licence.

The sentences were limited to those issued under legal guidelines at the time of the offences.

They are two of 15 Elkins siblings. Michael Elkins was acquitted of sexually assaulting his brothers’ victim as an adult, Richard and Derek Elkins were acquitted of abusing an underage girl midway through the trial while another, Stewart Elkins, died in August.