The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was aged in her teens when Timothy Newton, then aged in his early 20s, encouraged her to sneak out of home and meet him at his flat for sex.

Newton was convicted of the crime in the County Court this week and the woman said she wanted to speak out after coming to terms with the fact she was not to blame for what happened.

“I never saw it as offending because I would sneak out and I always felt responsible in a sense,” she said.

“But speaking with my psychologist, she really made me realise that I did take on the victimisation and she really challenged me on that and that’s where she made me realise, and I thought ‘I’m going to press charges’.”

The woman said she had suffered decades of anxiety and depression as a result of Newton’s actions and now wanted to encourage other children who found themselves in a similar position to speak up.

“Why I did it is to have a voice for all those people who don’t have voices and even if one person comes forward that for me is positive, just giving someone a voice,” she said.

But even after Newton pleaded guilty, the woman said she received a hostile response from some members of the small community in which he now lives.

“I had a couple of inboxes that weren’t positive, just like ‘Why would you do this to him?’, and stuff like that and it blows me away,” she said.

“One I did reply to and said ‘Well if it was your [teenage] daughter would that be OK?’ Because I don’t think it would be – if anyone’s got a child, that’s never OK.”

But despite the negative reaction from some, the woman said she now felt she could finally put the offending behind her and move on with her life.

“Justice for me was just him pleading guilty, him acknowledging that yes, he did it,” she said.

“It’s not my shame, I’ve handed it over now and I’ve taken my power and my voice back, it’s illegal, I was [a child] and it wasn't OK and the court supported that.”