A FORMER Flintshire man has been sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison after admitting historic sex offences.

Michael Scott Fitch, 37, carried out indecent assaults and acts of indecency at Buckley during a period when he was aged 14 to 18.

His victim, aged 11 to 15 at the time of the offences, broke down as she read out a statement at Mold Crown Court.

“I had my childhood taken away from me when I was 11," she said.

“I have no idea who I am and I am not my own person any more.

"I didn’t want to be here when I was 18 and I don’t now I am 34.”

Sentencing Fitch, Judge David Hale told him: “No words of condemnation can be any more judgement than the words issued by your victim today.

“Your conduct towards her over a period of five years has had a devastating effect on her life.”

Barrister Owen Edwards, prosecuting, told the court Fitch forced the girl to give him oral sex and he touched her breasts on a regular basis.

“He encouraged her to touch his penis and told her that it wasn’t too bad,” said the prosecutor.

The victim said she had viewed the sexual abuse as being “just normal” but later confided in a youth leader.

When she was 18 she took an overdose and was placed on a life support machine.

Afterwards she told her family about what had happened to her, but only reported the offences to police many years later.

The victim told the court the abuse, which ended in 2000, had caused her to have suicidal thoughts and left her beset with problems with addiction over the years including self-harm, eating disorders and an addiction to pornography.

Fitch, of Pomeroy Street, Cardiff, admitted indecently assaulting a child and two counts of gross indecency with a child both between the same dates. He also pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a child.

Defence barrister Paul Hewitt said Fitch made admissions to his parents in 2003.

He said Fitch was young himself at the time of the offending and he had shown remorse.

“It was entirely of his own doing, but he [Fitch] was a child himself when it started,” he said.

The judge ordered Fitch to sign the sex offenders register for life.