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A cross-dressing Jehovah’s Witness raped and molested a girl while making her wear adult women’s clothes.

David Fuge, 69, wore dresses and silky underwear when he repeatedly abused his blindfolded victim from the age of eight to 19.

Liverpool Crown Court heard he gagged her and on one occasion tied a belt around her neck and left her hanging from a hook in a room.

He photographed the child naked, made her read pornographic magazines, beat her with a piece of wood and abused her at a golf course.

Fuge, of Gorsey Lane, Wallasey, admitted having a fetish for cross-dressing and that his sex life with his wife suffered when she became ill.

The OAP confessed to some sexual touching with the victim and accepted hitting her on the bottom with a stick but denied the full allegations.

He was found guilty of rape, three sexual assaults now categorised as rape, two counts of indecency with a child and 12 counts of indecent assault.

The victim sobbed in court today as Judge Norman Wright jailed Fuge for 17 years with an extended year on licence.

The judge said: “You made her dress up in adult female clothing. You would blindfold her so in the early stages at least she did not see you were wearing women’s clothing.

“You posed her in provocative positions and then photographed her, all this for your own perverted sexual gratification.

“Your sexual fantasies led you to take her out blindfolded dressed in adult female clothing to a nearby golf course, where you worked or had been working, so your sexual frisson for what took place at the golf course would no doubt be heightened by the inherent risk of being discovered.”

He added: “All these perverted acts occurred beneath the surface of a man who had the public face of a God-fearing Jehovah’s Witness.”

The last of the historic sex offences saw Fuge rape the then adult, before telling her: “I wouldn’t touch you with a bargepole now.”

The pervert laughed at his victim when she confronted him years later, but she summoned the courage to go to police and he was arrested in 2016.

Andrew Ford, prosecuting, told the court Fuge was responsible for “deeply serious and violent sexual behaviour”, which left his victim filled with “nervous dread”.

He said it remained her “secret” throughout her childhood as she did not think she would be believed, felt ashamed and was afraid of it being found out.

Mr Ford said: “She says this is nothing to do with how long he goes to prison for.

“She said ‘I would just like him to take responsibility for what he did and say sorry. I hope he will come to realise what he did was wrong and has damaged me’.”

Martine Snowdon, defending, said Fuge’s wife of over 50 years still supported him and relied on him for help due to multiple health problems.

She said Fuge, of previous good character, was recovering from cancer having gone into remission in 2015 and also suffered from asthma.

Ms Snowdon urged the judge to pass a sentence that “gives hope to him and those supportive of him, who are keen to be reunited with him”.

Judge Wright described Fuge’s crimes as “abhorrent” and said the girl had been his “sexual plaything” so he could act out his “deepest, darkest fantasies”.

He said he did not underestimate the “corrosive” impact the abuse had on her, which continued when she became an adult with the rape offence.

The judge said: “What you have done is not only haunt her days to a limited extent but also her nights.

“She has the fear that the photos you clearly took when she was so much younger might somehow come to light.”

Fuge turned and waved to supporters in the public gallery when he was sent down.