Louise Long with her husband Geoff. She has told how she turned detective after her husband was accused of sexually abusing his daughter Tina

A devoted wife who stood by her husband when he was wrongly convicted of sexually abusing his daughter has told how she poured over hundreds of court papers in a bid to clear his name.

Five years ago Louise Long's husband Geoff was accused of abuse by his daughter Tina, who claimed it started when she was aged just eight years old.

After a police investigation and court case, Mr Long, from Eastbourne, was jailed and Mrs Long saw her business fold and social services threaten to take away her children.

But she was determined to stand by her husband and prove his innocence, even when she was physically attacked by a mother whose daughter had tried to play with her son James.

Mrs Long, 49, then decided to turn detective and paid for 3,600 pages of witness reports, not introduced into court, to be transcribed.

Following further investigation at a second retrial, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped all charges in January this year.

Mrs Long told the Sunday People: 'I was an outcast. One day a mum opened my car door and started ­punching me. She was upset James had tried to play with her girl and was screaming that I loved paedophiles. I begged her to stop as James cried hysterically in the back.

'Almost overnight, I lost everything. It would have been easy to fall apart but I had to show the world Geoff wasn’t the monster Tina made him out to be.

'While the children were at school, I sat at home poring over hundreds of pages of court papers, desperate to find evidence which could help free Geoff. He is the most loving, caring father. I had to prove his innocence.

'I visited Geoff in prison. He begged me to leave him and said he’d divorce me and sign over the house. I burst into tears and said no, we were in this together.'

Mr Long' ordeal has its origins in his first marriage, when he was working as a painter and decorator. Geoff and wife Sue were both young – he was 17 and she was just 16 when they married. Their union ended in divorce, as did Geoff’s second marriage, which produced two sons.

By the time Geoff and his third wife Louise married and had their son James, now ten, Geoff’s contact with Sue and Tina had been reduced to accusatory late-night phone calls in which mother and daughter screeched abuse about imagined slights and long-forgotten disputes.

Tina went to Brighton police’s historic sexual abuse inquiry team and told them that 30 years before, when she was just eight, she had been abused by her father.

She alleged she was abused while her mother Sue went out to a local bingo hall and that after she would wash herself in a pink sink in her bedroom.

Talking earlier this year with the Mail on Sunday, Mr Long said: 'I cannot describe how it felt to stand and listen to my only daughter accuse me of paedophilia.

‘I had been advised by my legal team to try to remain impassive when Tina was giving evidence. But inside I wanted to scream the roof off. This was my own flesh and blood.’

Although the court had ruled Tina, now 47, would remain anonymous because of her age at the time of the alleged offence, she opted to write a salacious magazine article telling in intimate detail the false tale of her supposed abuse.

Tina, pictured, went to Brighton police’s historic sexual abuse inquiry team and told them that 30 years before, when she was just eight, she had been abused by her father

Although the court had ruled Tina, now 47, would remain anonymous because of her age at the time of the alleged offence, she opted to write a salacious magazine article telling in intimate detail the false tale of her supposed abuse

In the article she wrote how her father called her his ‘special little girl’ while assaulting her and warned her she would ‘split up the family’ if she ever told ‘our secret’.

But due to Mrs Long's tireless work to try and clear her husband's name she uncovered that the officer carrying out the initial investigation had typed up notes explaining there was no pink sink in Tina’s childhood room. He even had floorboards ripped up to ensure there had never been plumbing to the room.

The bingo hall that Tina’s mother said she was at when Mr Long was supposedly abusing their daughter had closed decades before the alleged assaults.

Tina's brother Steve made a statement that in a drunken moment she confessed to her brother that she had made up all the accusations. But when Steve went to police he was charged with perverting the course of justice.

Mrs Long added: 'Tina’s ­evidence was convincing. I was torn, wondering if she told the truth.

'I looked out video footage of Geoff with my nieces and studied him. Had he hugged them a moment too long? But there was nothing. I felt crushing guilt for doubting him.'

But despite being cleared at a second retrial, Mr Long says the ordeal still has a negative effect on his reputation.

He added: 'Yes, I have been wholly exonerated and justice has been done.

‘But I live with the knowledge that some people will inevitably take the view that there is no smoke without fire. It tortures me that the stigma remains.’