A 63-year-old woman has apologised to a man she treated as a “sex toy” as a teenager in the 1990s, leading him to sue her 30 years later and she has now been convicted.

A woman who treated a teenage boy as a “sex toy” three decades ago has been convicted of sexual assault.

Andrea Davey, now 63, had sex with the boy twice and engaged in sexual activity on a third occasion during the 1990s.

She was reported to the police after she sought out her victim 30 years later to apologize. She told her victim that she wanted to “redeem herself.”

Bradford Crown Court heard how the victim, now an adult, suffered flashbacks because she did not believe the abuse she had suffered was real.

Prosecutor Clare Walsh said Davey “started a conversation” with the victim several years before she reported him to police.

Ms Walsh said: “She started a conversation about skeletons in the closet and talked about redeeming herself. She said: ‘I’m so sorry for what I did to you.'”

The victim told Bradford Crown Court her life had been “destroyed” by the abuse.

The court heard that Davey told police the boy had initiated sexual contact on the first occasion, but that she pursued him a second time. She spoke to him “as if he were a sex toy”, the court heard.

The victim opened up to her current partner shortly after the conversation with Davey, telling her closest friends and writing him a letter to tell him how she felt. She reported the matter to the police and two days later Davey turned himself in.

Davey was reported to have given a voluntary interview and said there was another occasion when the boy tried to touch her, but she told him “no” and that it was “wrong.” Davey said nothing further happened.

Davey, from Bradford, pleaded guilty to three counts of indecently assaulting a man.

In a victim impact statement read out to the court, the victim said her life had been “destroyed” by the abuse.

Ms Walsh said: ‘He said he now believes he blocked the abuse out of his mind and that was what caused him to have visions which initially disturbed him. He did not believe they were real incidents.

“He said that when she told him what she had done, he felt terrible and that his life was shattered. He said he wished they hadn’t told him 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 that you have now reached a level of stability in your life.”

Judge Rose described Davey’s crime as an “act of depravity” and sentenced her to three years and four months in prison.

Judge Rose said: ‘The law rightly prohibits sexual activity with a child. At the time the offences were committed you were addicted to amphetamines. You denied that you were under the influence of the drug at the time of the offences.

‘It was you, as an adult, who should never have considered having sexual intimacy. He didn’t understand what was happening or the wrongness or consequences of sexual activity with you.

‘In her pre-sentence report she admitted that she ruined his life and her own. Her life after these events has been turbulent. She has suffered violence and is disabled as a result. She has been free from her addiction for some years. She has suffered from mental health problems and to this day takes medication for anxiety.’

The judge said there was an element of preparation, planning and deliberation on Davey’s part. He told her she would be on the sex offenders’ register for life and made her the subject of a sexual harm prevention order.