A MAN on trial for historic sex offences on a boy under 14 has claimed the victim has made ‘false allegations', a court heard.

Paul Kelly, 56, has been accused of a string of charges which date back to between 1981 and 1987, Preston Crown Court was told.

Kelly was first questioned by Rachel Faux for the defence.

Kelly was asked about his connection to the victim and the sexual acts he has been accused of doing to the victim decades ago.

When asked, “did you touch him”, “did you make him touch you”, “did you make him perform sexual acts on you”, the defendant responded: “no I did not”.

The same questions were put to him in regard to a number of locations in Barrow where the alleged offences were supposed to have taken place - all of which he provided the same answer.

These locations cannot be revealed in order to protect the automatic anonymity granted to the victim by law.

Kelly went on to speak about the sexual offence for which he was convicted of when he was 26 and told the jury the reason he admitted to those offences 30 years ago is because they were true.

Ms Faux ended her questioning with “did you do anything sexual with the victim?” to which Kelly responded, “no I did not”.

Ms Mather for the prosecution then took her turn to grill Kelly, firing similar questions as her opposition counsel to begin with, asking about his past and his connection with the victims.

Ms Mather went on to ask Kelly directly whether he had engaged in touching with the victim and making him perform sexual acts on him, to which the response to all was, “no I did not”.

Kelly went on to state that he was telling the truth when he told police that he had no idea what the victim looked like.

Before the questioning came to an end, the prosecution asked: “why has he (the victim) made these allegations if they are not true”, to which his response was, “he is just making false allegations”.

The trial is due to continue carrying forward only six charges rather than nine, after the jury gave a non-guilty verdict on three counts dating back to between 1987 and 1990 under direction of the judge.

Judge Jeffries QC gave this direction after the victim’s admitted that he may have mistakenly said the offences occurred during 1987 and 1990, to which the three charges applied.