A woman who treated a teenage boy as a ‘sex toy’ three decades ago has been convicted of sexually assault.
Andrea Davey, now 63, had sex twice with the boy and engaged in sexual activity on a third occasion during the 1990s.
She was reported to police after she sought out her victim 30 years later to apologise. She told her victim she wished to ‘redeem herself’.
Bradford Crown Court heard how the victim, who is now an adult, suffered ‘flashbacks’ as he did not think that the abuse he had suffered was real.
Prosecutor Clare Walsh said Davey ‘instigated a conversation’ with the victim several years before he reported her to the police.
Ms Walsh said: ‘She instigated a conversation about skeletons in the closet and spoke about redeeming herself. She said: ‘I’m really sorry for what I did to you.”
The court heard Davey told police the boy had initiated sexual contact on the first occasion, but she sought him out a second time. She spoke to him ‘like [he] was a sex toy’, the court heard.
The victim opened up to his current partner not long after the conversation with Davey, told close friends, and wrote a letter to her about how he felt. He reported the matter to the police and two days later Davey handed herself in.
It was said Davey gave a voluntary interview and said there was another occasion where the boy tried to touch her but she said ‘no’ and that it was ‘wrong.’ Davey said nothing more happened.
Davey, of Bradford, went on to plead guilty to three counts of indecent assault on a male.
In a victim impact statement read out to the court the victim said his life has been ‘destroyed’ by the abuse.
Ms Walsh said: ‘He said he now thinks that he blocked out the abuse in his mind and that was what caused him to have visions that at first disturbed him. He didn’t think they were real incidents.
‘He said once she told him what she had done he felt awful and that his life has been destroyed. He said he would have rather not have been told in the first place.’
Harry Crowson, mitigating, told the court that at the time of the abuse, Davey was addicted to amphetamine but was not under the influence of the drug when she committed the offences.
He addressed the Honorary Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Rose, and said: ‘You will have read she has now reached a level of stability in her life.’
Judge Rose described Davey’s offending as an ‘act of depravity’ as he jailed her for three years and four months.
Judge Rose said: ‘The law rightly prohibits sexual activity with a child. At the time the offences were committed you were addicted to amphetamine. You denied you were under the influence of the drug at the time of the offences.
‘It was you as the adult who should not have ever considered in engaging in sexual intimacy. He had no understanding of what was happening or the wrongness or consequences of sexual activity with you.
‘In the pre-sentence report you admitted you have ruined his life and your own. Your life after these events have been turbulent. You have suffered violence and as a result are disabled. You have been free of your addiction for some years. You have suffered from mental health issues and to this day take medication for anxiety.’
The judge said there was an element of grooming and planning and deliberation on Davey’s part. He told her she will be on the sex offenders register for life and made her the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.