THE wife of a convicted paedophile has hit out at people who have called her “filth”, and said she had no idea what he had been up to until she attended court.

Ian Roberts, 67, was jailed for 11 years earlier this week for a catalogue of abuse against two girls over a 17-year period in his twenties and thirties.

Following his conviction, his wife, who does not wish to give her first name, said she had been on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse because of her husband’s depraved behaviour.

But she said she knew nothing about his dark past, which occurred before they first met.

And she also said an admission in court that she was “supporting him” had been misinterpreted.

Mrs Roberts, 60, said: “I wasn’t supporting him, I just went to the court to find out what he had done.

“He didn’t come clean when he was arrested, he didn’t tell me anything.

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“When he got called to the station he said he didn’t know what it was about.

“People have been saying I am filth and I should be locked up, and have said I must have been in on it with him.

“I didn’t even know him at the time. I met him in the late 1990s when he was in his forties, and he had stopped when he was 39.

“I knew he had done something wrong before I met him but I had no idea what.

“When I found out at court I was absolutely disgusted with him. When he moved in with me after we met I had two young daughters, if I had known what he had done he would never have been allowed to move in.

“I should not be getting this abuse. I was not supporting him, it might have meant for his illnesses but I did not support him in court.

“He was living with me because he had nowhere else to go with his illnesses, but he was sleeping on the couch.

“I have anxiety as it is and this is just making it worse. It is wrong I am suffering from something I have not done.”

Ian Roberts abused three girls who were aged between five and 13 over a 17-year period, when he was aged 22 to 39, and was jailed on Tuesday, May 14.

He admitted nine offences of indecent assault and one count of indecency with a child, with some counts representing multiple accounts of abuse.

Bradford Crown Court heard the abuse has had a profound impact on the women throughout their life.

The Recorder of Bradford Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC called the offending “routine, repetitive and blatant”.