A former police community support officer has been jailed for 24 years for raping two young girls after one of the children had a flashback when another officer made a routine school visit.

Peter Bunyan, 43, from Penzance in Cornwall, was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting the girls when they were aged between three and six. One of the girls remembers him wearing at least some of his police uniform when he attacked her.

Bunyan, formerly a PCSO in Camborne and Redruth, was previously jailed for having sex while on duty and for using police computers to collect data about vulnerable women.

A jury at Truro crown court found Bunyan guilty on Monday of three counts of rape and one of sexual assault between 2005 and 2009. He was found not guilty of one charge of rape against one of the girls. Bunyan had denied the allegations.

The jury heard it was only when one of the girls had a police officer visit her school that her memory was triggered and she began to piece together what happened before confiding in family members and school staff.

Medical examinations carried out following the allegations suggested both the girls had suffered injuries that suggested they had been sexually abused.

Sentencing Bunyan, judge Simon Carr said: “You assaulted them in a way that they would stay quiet .... Both of the victims have since spoken of the pain they were in during and after the ordeal.

“Both of the girls are struggling to come to terms with what happened to them and the utter devastation caused by your actions. The victims have also since self-harmed as a way of coming to terms with it all.”

An NSPCC spokesman said: “Bunyan is a sexual predator who is now thankfully behind bars. His appalling crimes robbed his defenceless victims of their childhood and could have a lasting impact well into their adult years.

“No child should ever have to experience what the victims went through. It is vital anyone affected can get the support they need rather than suffer in silence, as sadly so many do.”

In 2013 at Taunton crown court, Bunyan was found guilty of misconduct in a public office.

He had neglected his duties by turning his police radio down on shifts before having sex with women and treated police computers “as a dating agency” by using them to perform background checks on women.