A PERVERTED stepfather who abused a girl from the age of five was jailed for 12 years.

Paul Dyer, 42, of Garden Suburbs, Pontywaun, near Cross Keys, was found guilty of one count of rape, ten charges of indecent assault, and three of committing gross indecency against a child. He admitted three further charges of indecent assault.

Yesterday Michael Mather-Lees, for Dyer, said: "He feels deep shame and he feels sick at what he did."

But Judge David Morris, sitting at Newport crown court, called the abuse "perverted".

"You married her mother and accepted her as if she was a child of your own," he told Dyer. "You were in a position of trust towards her and you broke that trust in the worst way possible."

Dyer's victim, stepdaughter Toni Finn, 22, waived her anonymity with the support of her family and fiancé Paul Roderick to bravely tell the Argus last month of the ordeal she suffered - hoping other abuse victims would come forward and report it as a result.

"I feel better for being in the paper," she said yesterday.

"I have done nothing wrong and I have nothing to hide. I know some people who are abused feel they are at fault but they aren't and they have nothing to be ashamed of."

She had thought nobody would believe her and kept the abuse a secret until October last year.

Now, she said she could put the abuse behind her.

"I'm glad because while he's in prison he won't be able to do this to anybody else," she said.

"I do think that he should serve the full 12 years, but no sentence would ever be long enough for what he did."

Miss Finn, mum to two-year-old Madison, said she had been having constant nightmares about Dyer since the court case began. But with his imprisonment she hoped these would now end.

Dyer was told he must serve three-quarters of his sentence before he is eligible for parole.

After release he must register as a sex offender indefinitely.