A FORMER charity chief executive and social worker has been jailed for a total of 14 years for rape and a series of assaults on a child.

Abdul Khan was told by a judge that he had shown not a flicker of remorse for the attacks, which were committed over several years, and that he stood in the dock in disgrace.

Khan, 55, worked for councils in Durham, Middlesbrough and Stockton and was previously chief executive of the Stockton-based charity Black Minority Ethnic Community Organisations Network (BECON).

He was convicted after a trial of one count of rape, 11 indecent assaults and six of indecency with a child, all relating to the same victim, now an adult.

He had denied all of the offences.

Earlier this month in a statement the charity’s trustees expressed their “deep abhorrence” of the appalling criminal acts committed by Khan and said after being given extended leave, he would not be returning to the organisation.

The abuse did not relate to his role or activity with the charity, nor any of his previous posts.

Khan’s victim, who was at Teesside Crown Court to see him sentenced, said he made her feel trapped and not in control.

She said she was groomed and stripped of her confidence and now suffered from anxiety and claustrophobia.

The woman said in a statement read out by prosecutor Paul Cleasby: “After all this time I still feel guilty and ashamed about what happened, like it is my fault.”

She said she felt unclean and described how she would bleach her house from top to bottom, also suffering nightmares and flashbacks.

Pamela Brain, for Khan, of Trimdon Avenue, Acklam, Middlesbrough, said he maintained his innocence and also referred to several character references handed into Judge Stephen Ashurst.

The judge said the victim had given compelling evidence and had suffered untold damage at Khan’s hands.

He said: “It is quite clear that over a period of seven years you abused her sexually on a continuous basis.

“A dark cloud hung over her while she kept quiet about the torment and abuse you perpetrated on her.

“Throughout this matter she felt degraded and unable to share her secret with others.

“You treated this girl as an object for sexual gratification. She was vulnerable and you exploited her vulnerability.”

The judge said Khan had made a good life for himself and it was plain that he was otherwise an intelligent and caring man who had a blindspot for the victim.

Many of his family described the support the defendant had given them and the judge said they would suffer his loss keenly, but only he was responsible for his actions.