By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 11:37, Wednesday, 28 March 2012

A teenager accused of repeatedly abusing a younger boy admitted in court yesterday that he had kissed him several times.

But Christopher Brown, now 19, insisted he did it only to show the boy “affection” at a time when he was miserable through being bullied at school.

Brown was arrested last year in Middlesbrough, where he is at college, on a string of charges that he had sexually assaulted the boy when they both lived in Workington a few years ago.

The prosecution claim that the alleged behaviour started with “a chaste kiss on the cheek”, but graduated to inappropriate touching and then to something much more serious.

Brown, of Needham Drive, Workington, has denied a total of nine charges of sexual activity with a child, all allegedly committed before he was 18.

In evidence at Carlisle Crown Court yesterday Brown told the jury: “I felt sorry for him.

“He was being called names at school.”

Brown said that, as a “big lad with a high voice”, he too had been bullied at school so understood what the younger boy was going through.

“I put my arm round him, patted him on the shoulder, put my hand on his knee and rubbed his thigh as a comfort,” he said.

“That’s how my Mam comforts me when I tell her problems.”

Asked if he had ever kissed the boy, Brown admitted he had.

“I kissed him on the cheek and then I kissed him on the lips,” he said.

“It was just a sign of comforting him, and affection.”

Brown said none of his behaviour had had a sexual motive.

“It was like reactionary,” he said. “It was just a way I showed affection at the time.

“I have grown up since then and things don’t happen that way now.”

The trial continues.

First published at 11:24, Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk