A respected mother and former school governor has been jailed for intimidating a teenage girl her husband had sexually assaulted.

Shameem Akhtar, 28, issued a "chilling threat" in an attempt to keep her family together, a Court heard.

Akhtar, of Belgrave Road, Keighley, told her husband's 14-year-old victim that she and her family would be in danger if she did not drop the sex allegation.

Akhtar said that men from Leeds would go to her home and harm the family.

The distressed girl complained to the police about the threat, Leeds Crown Court was told on Wednesday.

Akhtar's husband, Shabir Ahmed, 32, was jailed for two and a half years in February for indecently assaulting the girl, who was just 13 at the time.

Akhtar and her co-accused, family friend Barbara McMeekin, were convicted of witness intimidation last month after a re-trial at Bradford Crown Court.

McMeekin, 20, of Gaythorpe Street, Great Horton, Bradford, was sentenced at an earlier hearing to a 100-hour community punishment order.

The court heard that she played a much lesser role in the offence.

Prosecutor Austin Newman said that the girl was threatened when she was picked up in Akhtar's car in the centre of Keighley, on March 12, last year.

Akhtar then dropped her off near the town's police station, hoping that she would ask to have the allegation dropped.

"She was in a distressed state and made a complaint of intimidation," Mr Newman said.

Miss Michelle Colborne told the court that Akhtar had been manipulated by her husband, as had the other woman involved with the case. She had been under substantial family pressure and had committed the offence in a naive attempt to hold her family together.

Miss Colborne said that Akhtar had now turned against her husband. "She hates the man. She loathes the very name," she said.

Akhtar was the mother of three children, the youngest being only nine months old.

Of good character, she had led a decent and law abiding life.

She had been a governor at Guard House Primary School, in Keighley, and a letter from the head teacher was handed to the judge.

Miss Colborne said Akhtar had been distraught in the months since her husband had assaulted the girl.

"She fears what her husband will do. He is not a man who will go away. She wants to keep her family safe from him," she said.

Judge Peter Benson said that although he did not want to jail Akhtar, he would be failing in his public duty and sending out wrong messages if he did otherwise.

He said she had been a credit to the local community and he believed she had been pressured into doing what she did, but the intimidation was carried out after careful planning.

The girl must have been distressed by the sex assault upon her, and Akhtar's actions could only have made things worse, he added.

"You made a most unpleasant and chilling threat," the judge told her.

He added that she lied during two trials, keeping it up to the bitter end.

"You threatened a vulnerable 14-year-old girl with intent to impede the course of justice," he said. He added that normally such an offence would attract a jail sentence of years rather than months, but he believed that Akhtar acted under pressure and she was otherwise a credit to the community.

She was jailed for 28 days for witness intimidation.