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A former care worker and mayor who indecently assaulted a hospital patient while treating her for bedsores has been jailed.

Colin Jones, 56, assaulted the 58-year-old grandmother while working at West Suffolk Hospital in May last year.

A former mayor of St Edmundsbury and police committee chairman, Jones appeared for sentence at Norwich Crown Court yesterday after being convicted last month.

Jones, recently a cleaner at a Cambridge college, had denied the charge, claiming he had been given permission to cover the woman with cream.

Sentencing him to eight months' imprisonment and 10 years on the sex offenders' register, Judge Simon Barham told Jones he had taken advantage of a vulnerable patient.

But he added that the sentence would have been much longer if it had not been for Jones' charity work and previous good character.

Judge Barham said: "The offence was so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified.

"The humiliation of this offence is a greater punishment for you than for someone who has not had such an extensive charitable and public life.

"I accept a sentence of imprisonment will be very grave indeed in these circumstances and therefore I am reducing the sentence."

Norwich Crown Court was told how Jones had applied cream to the woman's breasts and private parts while working on the wards.

He later pulled a curtain round her bed and removed her underwear when she asked for a commode.

Adam Budworth, in mitigation, said Jones had been placed in a "vulnerable" situation during his work at the Bury St Edmunds hospital.

References read out in court described Jones, of Dane Common, Kedington near Haverhill, as "thoughtful and caring" and devoted to helping the local community.

Villagers in Kedington, where Jones had campaigned for an ambulance, described him as "full of compassion".

A long-standing borough councillor, Jones was Mayor of St Edmundsbury, which includes Haverhill, from 1995-96 and chairman of Suffolk Police Committee from 1983-1995.

Mr Budworth criticised West Suffolk Hospital, which he claimed had failed to protect its male care workers and women patients because there was no chaperoning policy.

After the court hearing, a spokesman for West Suffolk Hospital said: "There should not be a need for chaperoning if health care support workers follow the hospital's code of conduct on how they should conduct themselves.

"It's their duty to make sure they know what attention a patient requires, explain to the patient what they need to do and seek permission before starting any intervention.

"If a patient objects on the grounds of gender, health workers are obliged to withdraw. That applies to men treating women and women treating men."