A CHILD abuser has been jailed for 21 years after his victim told a court he stole her childhood and ruined her life.

Clive Seaman forced the girl to drink Bacardi and lemonade while playing a board game before he subjected her to a horrific series of attacks.

He also forced her to commit sex acts with him after picking her up from school and driving her to secluded lanes near Tiverton.

The abuse took place in the 1980s but Seaman got away with it for three decades because of two flawed police investigations.

His victim finally went back to the police in 2012 because she could not cope with the continuing psychological trauma caused by her childhood memories.

She sobbed as she stood in front of Seaman and the judge and read a victim impact statement explaining how the abuse had blighted her life.

She said: "He would scare me, hurt me and made my life a living hell.

"I missed out on my childhood and was convinced nobody would believe me. I believed it was my fault and I was too scared to tell my mum.

"When I met my husband I told him we could not be together. Luckily he has stood by me for 20 years. Due to this case he is also suffering from stress and health problems.

"I have tried to end my life on many occasions. I have taken four overdoses which required hospital treatment.

"I stood on a railway bridge and was ready to jump but luckily there was no train and I did not let this man take my life as well.

"I am on high levels of medication for depression. I feel my life can now move forward and I am now excited by the future."

Seaman, 60, is a former market trader who had wet fish stalls at Tiverton and Plymouth markets at the time he was carrying out the abuse.

He had previously worked as a driver delivering frozen foods to homes in Devon.

Seaman, of York Road, Taunton, was found guilty at Exeter Crown Court of ten sexual assaults, including three which would now be classed as rape of a child.

Jailing him, Judge Graham Cottle said: "Over a long period of time you systematically abused the girl in practically every way imaginable.

"You did to her and made her do to you exactly what you pleased and demanded.

"Her young life must have been pure hell. You set about first grooming and then abusing her and gave her alcohol to drink to facilitate the abuse.

"There must have been an enormous impact on a child of such tender years. The effect on her is evident from the victim impact statement she read to the court, with understandable difficulty.

"You got away with this for years. Now justice finally catches up with you. The passage of time does not diminish the seriousness of these offences."

Seaman denied that any sexual activity of any sort had ever taken place.

Harry Ahuja, defending, said he is a father and grandfather and there has never been any suggestion of any offending in the past 25 years.