A FORMER pub boss was yesterday locked up for five years for the systematic abuse of a schoolgirl a decade ago.

Sandra Gough was told that she had been the cause of much of the psychological troubles that her victim has since suffered.

Judge Tony Briggs told Gough that she will be banned from working with children for life as a result of her conviction.

He also imposed a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, which prohibits Gough from having unsupervised contact with under-18s.

The 37-year-old will also have to register as a sex offender when she is released from jail, and will stay on the list for life.

Gough denied five charges of indecent assault, but was found guilty after a three-day trial at Teesside Crown Court last month.

The jury accepted the victim’s vivid descriptions of her ordeal, and rejected the exlicensee’s account that the girl was lying.

In a statement read to the court yesterday, the victim blamed Gough for stealing her childhood and ruining her life.

“The things she did still haunt me,” it said. “I still suffer nightmares and flashbacks.

I feel as though I’ll never get over it.

“I feel like she took away the best years of my life. I lost out on a proper childhood, and can never get those years back.”

The court heard how the victim – now in her 20s – “went off the rails” after the abuse and spent seven years “out of my head”.

The woman blames Gough, of Highcliffe Terrace, Ferryhill, County Durham, for her mental health problems.

Jonathan Walker, mitigating, said it was “difficult in the extreme” to attribute to Gough all of the harm that was caused.

He said while the offences were “ugly”, they were not the most serious of their type, and urged the judge not to impose a “crushing” sentence.

The jury in the trial heard how Gough, also a former factory worker, repeatedly indecently touched and groped the youngster.

The two-year ordeal came to an end when Gough moved from the North-East to run a pub in Lincoln in 2001.

She denied leaving to dodge accusations, saying she moved after the death of her mother, and stayed because of a relationship.

As she went into court, Gough was hugged by her supporters who sat in the public gallery as she was jailed.

Judge Briggs told her: “Quite clearly a significant sentence is inevitable. It has clearly had a significant effect on her (the victim). I bear in mind what has been said by Mr Walker about it not being the only cause, but I am satisfied it is a significant cause of them, and it has obviously had a very bad effect on her emotional and psychological development.”

Commenting after the sentence, Detective Constable Fran Donovan, of Cleveland Police, said: “I am very pleased with this result. I hope that this gives confidence to other victims of sexual abuse, to speak out.

“This sentence sends a clear message to those who prey upon the most vulnerable members of society that Cleveland Police and the Crown Prosecution Service will always strive to bring them to justice, no matter how long ago their crimes.”