As her attacker goes to jail, the 60-year-old asked the court to lift her name suppression and sat down with ONE News for an interview.

Ms Shelley first met Hercock at Lower Hutt's Sacred Heart College in 1970.

She was just 14 - and he was the school's chaplain and counsellor.

"I came to completely trust him and talk to him about everything that was going on in my life," Ms Shelley told ONE News.

"It became quite easy to not notice the things that were kind-of going on in the periphery."

Within a year he'd begun indecently assaulting her, at first rubbing her back and thighs.

Three years later, Ms Shelley was training to be a nurse when she fell pregnant and was considering adoption.

Although she'd left school, Ms Shelly turned to Hercock for help.

Instead, he raped her.

Ms Shelley says the attack coloured "every single aspect of her life."

"When my generation was growing up in Catholicism we were taught that the priest was the closest thing on Earth to God and so the priest was God's representative on Earth.

"It's not just your religion it's your entire way of life," she said.

"To be sexually offended against by the person who represents all of that leaves you with nothing to hang onto and nowhere to go."

A decade later, Hercock raped her again.

But she stayed quiet for almost 30 years, unable to trust many people and always questioning her own judgement.

When the Boston Globe uncovered widespread sexual abuse by priests in 2002, she found the courage to take action. She also discovered another woman had been abused by Hercock.

"The anger actually gave me the strength and the energy to confront what had happened and to have him held accountable."

The Catholic Church had promised to investigate all claims and Ms Shelley laid a complaint with its protocol committee.

She was given $25,000 by the church to 'help her rebuild her life'.

Then, in 2014, women's rights advocate Louise Nicholas got in touch – and police launched a full investigation. Hercock was charged.

Ms Shelley says she now sees the "man of God" for what he really is: "a narcissist, who is manipulative, cunning and sly" and "bordering on evil."