TWO sisters hugged each other yesterday as the man who abused them 30 years ago began a two-year sentence.

Comedienne Ms Janey Godley, 35, and her sister, Mrs Ann Crawford, 40, waived their right to anonymity as they saw justice catch up at last with their uncle, David Percy.

Ms Godley, a TV comedy scriptwriter who has appeared at some of the UK's top night spots for comics, said: ``We are both just delighted that justice has been done and one more pervert has been taken off the streets.

``Child abuse is an illness. I am not bitter. I just wanted justice done and both me and my sister hope he gets help. Mrs Crawford said: ``My life started the day after I went to the police and told them what had happened all these years before.`

Percy, 47, who played the flute in a Loyalist marching band, was found guilty after a four-day trial last month of sexually assaulting both women when they were just little girls.

Sentencing Percy, of Tollcross Road, Glasgow, at Glasgow Sheriff Court yesterday, Sheriff Craig Henry said he was taking into account the fact the offences happened a long time ago, and that he had no previous convictions of a similar nature. The sheriff said he was also aware the case had been hanging over Percy since since he was charged with the offences in October, 1993.

He added: ``That cannot have been a pleasant experience, but I have to have regard to the gravity of the charges and the fact that the jury has found you guilty. Offences of this nature must be met with a custodial sentence.`'

Defence counsel Mr Jack Davidson contested part of a social inquiry pre-sentence report which suggested that community service would not be appropriate for Percy because of his continual denial of the offences.

He said this should not be a bar to Percy undertaking some sort of community service or probation.

Mr Davidson also submitted that he was not a risk to children and that he had no contact with children in any structured or formalised way. He was a man of poor health and suffered from a spinal problem and asthma.

Mr Davidson added: ``Because of press coverage of the case, Mr Percy was the target of personal abuse and intimidation from a certain element who live in his community and that added to his entrenched discomforture.

``I concede that they were serious offences, but they were not the worst of the examples of this type of crime to come before the court.`'

During the four-day trial the two sisters wept in the witness box as they relived the extent of Percy's abuse.

Mrs Crawford went through a seven-year nightmare of abuse and Ms Godley a five-year ordeal.

Ms Godley told how she was nicknamed ``shakey cakey'' because her nerves were on edge and she was always trembling.

She described what happened to her as her ``dirty secret'' and revealed it was years before she talked to her sister about it. She found out that her sister had also been abused by Percy.

While on stage at a Childline charity concert Ms Godley confessed to the audience she had been abused.

Both women said their experiences at the hands of Percy helped wreck their marriages.

In his evidence, Percy said he was disgusted by the allegations and said he knew of no reason why the girls should have made them up. His defence counsel described Ms Godley as an ``attention seeker''.

Ms Godley said: ``It has taken 30 years for us to start our lives again, but the whole nightmare has brought us much closer together. ``For all these years before our family's dirty secret came out, we always knew that something existed between the two of us. We both kept this horrible secret to ourselves.''

``We waited 30 years - but we did it, and we did it together. Anyone who has been abused knows you cannot shake off the guilt. But the guilty one was Percy.''

Ms Godley told how she was so traumatised by the abuse that she stopped using her right hand because it was the hand that Percy made her touch him with. She had learned to write with her left hand instead.