A couple who once ran a pub frequented by serial killers Fred and Rose West have been jailed after being found guilty of multiple counts of physical and sexual abuse against 10 children.

David and Pauline Williams began their campaign of rape and sexual assault in the late 1980s when they ran the Prince Albert pub in Gloucester, where they befriended the Wests.

The couple subjected six girls and four boys to rapes, sexual assaults and beatings when their victims were as young as seven. In some cases the abuse continued until they were teenagers.

Their abuse went on when they moved to Exeter and Tiverton in Devon in the 1990s and 2000s. The pair used violence to bully their victims into compliance, beating some with sticks or strangling them.

David Williams, 57, was jailed for life and told he would spend at least 14 years behind bars before being considered for parole. His wife, 53, was sentenced to 12 years. As the couple were led away members of the public burst into applause and one person shouted: “Rot in hell.”

The jury had heard that David Williams terrified some of his victims by boasting of his connections with the Wests, who used to drink at the Prince Albert.

Williams told the jury at Exeter crown court: “Fred had a drink in our pub before he became infamous and so did his wife Rose. From what I remember he was a very friendly and quiet man who would sit at a corner table and have a drink. It was Rose who was the mouthy one. I did not threaten anyone by telling them about the Wests. Absolutely not. There was nothing frightening about my conversations about them.”

The court also heard Williams would tell some of the victims he was possessed by the devil and others that he had received messages from his dead father telling him to carry out the abuse.

Judge Erik Salomonsen told the pair: “Your behaviour towards these young people was sickening. You showed no compassion or compunction in using them for your perverted sexual pleasure. You abused the children at your homes in Gloucester and Exeter. Such was your domination and control the victims did not feel able prevent the abuse from continuing or go to the police.”

He said the victims had been robbed of the innocence of childhood and had described how they struggled with “nightmares, flashbacks and depression”. One said she lived “in constant fear of kidnap and rape”. Another said she would be “haunted for the rest of my life” by what had happened to her.

The couple, of Bradninch in Devon, denied 46 charges of sexual and physical abuse between 1989 and 2004.

David Williams was found guilty of 10 rapes, 13 indecent assaults, five counts of gross indecency, two of cruelty and one of sexual activity with a child. Pauline Williams was found guilty of two rapes and five indecent assaults.

Outside the court, DC Debbie Dow of Devon and Cornwall constabulary said: “The pair carried out a string of sickening and callous sexual attacks on children and teenagers without remorse over a 15-year period. The abuse was both physical and sexual and undertaken by both David and Pauline Williams.

“These victims, both men and women, had their childhoods stolen by David and Pauline Williams and all have suffered difficulties throughout their adulthood following this abuse as they struggled to live normal lives.”

She said the inquiry began in July 2013 when a woman disclosed to a mental health professional that she had suffered multiple rapes and sexual abuse by David Williams when she was 15.