A brave rape victim today told of her harrowing ordeal at the hands of her evil stepfather.

In an incredibly candid interview Natasha Hill lifts the lid on years of abuse at the hands of Patrick Farrell.

The silver-haired pensioner's double life as paedophile and golf club socialite was exposed during a court case earlier this month.

During a three-week trial at Hove Crown court Farrell, 79, wore an NSPCC badge as he accused his victim of making the whole story up.

But a jury saw past his old gentlemanly appearance and and he was jailed for nine years for 17 charges of rape and indecent assault dating back to the 1950s.

Today, Natasha, one of Farrell's three victims,tells her story. She asks for other victims of abuse to come forward and speak out.

The attacks date back to when Natasha was 11. She is now 32.

Natasha takes up the story in 1986. "My mother moved into Patrick's house in Haywards Heath when I was 11 and he was 58."

"I didn't know how they met. All I knew was that he had grown up in Ireland.

"He bought me presents and toys. He seemed happy and funny, certainly the sort of person you would initially take to.

"After just six months of living there he started to come into my bedroom at night.

"He would pretend he was playing a game with me and pull my nightie over my head so I couldn't see and he could look at my body."

By now Farrell had his own paving business and was already a well-known face at Haywards Heath Golf Club. But behind the charismatic exterior Farrell was beginning to play out his twisted fantasies.

"He had his own business and would leave for work early in the morning but then come home at exactly the time me and my sisters would be getting changed for school. He'd watch."

Despite Farrell's apparent generosity towards his partners children the mood quickly began to change.

Natasha describes how he began to suffer from severe mood swings and she would receive the blame.

"The back door would be left open and he would say I had done it. Messages would disappear from his phone and he would say I had done it.

"It is obvious to me now that this was all preparation for building up a reputation for me as a liar, so that as I began to tell my mother what he was doing to me she wouldn't believe me.

"Not long after that he progressed from getting into my bed to having full intercourse with me. From then on it happened weekly."

While all of this was happening, Farrell, attended dinners and dances at the golf club and built a reputation as witty raconteur .

"Dad was sending £900 in child support to the house and I feel like it helped pay for this lifestyle which ultimately he hoped would protect him.

"He became a member of a guild of craftsmen. He built up a group of well connected friends, ex magistrates, ex policemen and even a psychiatrist.

"Later he called on them to confirm his good character in court."

At home Farrell was becoming ever more paranoid. He began opening post belonging to his partner and her children and listening in on their phone calls.

"He called himself Holmes, as in Sherlock Holmes, and sometimes called my mother Watson. He had it engraved on two brandy glasses," Natasha said.

"He would pour mum brandy in the evening from these glasses. She would fall asleep and sleep through the assaults on me."

One evening Farrell listened in on Natasha, now from Burgess Hill, telling a friend over the phone that she didn't want to be left alone in the house with him.

"I suddenly realised he was listening and was coming up the stairs and I jumped out of my bedroom window.

"It was probably a drop of about 10 foot but I don't remember feeling any pain. I got up and ran through Haywards Heath to the friends house.

"It was very hard to explain in court how I survived that. It was the only way I could escape him. Adrenaline and fear stops you feeling pain.

"I found myself making sure I was ten steps ahead of him all the time.

"I would leave for school early in the morning just so I couldn't be alone in the house with him if he came home from work.

"I also called Childline but as a child you don't always have the right words."

The family continued to go away together on holidays in Devon and Cornwall and the abuse continued.

"In court he showed photos of us together in Devon looking happy, me doing a handstand, to prove he was a good father-figure.

"But it proved nothing. I was doing a handstand. As a child you do what you're told."

As soon as Natasha was 15 she moved out of the home in Haywards Heath to live with a friend. It was now 1991 and she had been abused for four years. She never returned and eight years later the house was sold.

It took a further 10 years before she felt she could tell police what had happened. But unbeknown to her other victims had also come forward with similar accounts Amazingly the call she made to Childline over 17 years beforehand was still on record and medical notes dating back to when Natasha was 12 backed up her story.

Farrell had spent years creating an image of himself that few would have cause to doubt.

He was the avid golfer, the Irish joke-teller, the life and soul of the party.

In court he turned up each day wearing the NSPCC badge pinned to a smart suit.

"It was disgusting and hurtful. I actually received an email from the NSPCC offering me their support."

Although Farrell is finally behind bars the scars will never fade for Natasha.

"He took away my childhood, it's like a life unlived. I'm not the person I should have been."

*Natasha, not her real name, has asked for anyone who was touched by this story to send their donations to the NSPCC.