A FORMER Workington teacher accused of sexually abusing two teenage boys inappropriately touched a third boy years earlier, a jury heard.

The new allegation against pensioner Paul Stuart Adams, who was heavily involved in local theatres, dated back to the mid-1990s when he worked as a teacher but it was not reported to the police until December, 2015.

Adams, 74, denies 15 sexual offences, including multiple child sex allegations and paying a child for sexual services. Those charges arise from reports made by two alleged victims in 2019.

At Carlisle Crown Court, on the fifth day of the defendant's trial, the jury was shown a police video-recording in which a third young man described abuse which he said happened in the 1990s when he was 16.

Before the video was played in court, Judge Richard Archer said that while the allegations made by the man did not give rise to any charges, the prosecution case was that the account supported their case.

The man gave the interview to police on December 24, 2015.

He said he had gone to Adams in the 1990s because he was a teacher and he thought he might be able to offer him advice about an idea he had for setting up his own business.

“He invited me to his house,” the man told the officer.

He described the house at Banklands in Workington where Adams lives, with its recording studio on the third floor. Adams had then, said the man, asked him about how comfortable he was with his sexual outlook.

The man confirmed that in sexual terms he is straight.

During their meeting, he said, Adams quizzed him about trust – and began playing a “trust game” with him, with the then teenager agreeing to remove an item of clothing every time Adams asked him a question.

The defendant told him that this was “to show how much he trusted him”, the man told the police officer.

The game began with him removing shoes, and then other items of clothing, said the man.

Describing the seating arrangement when he visited Adams, the man said: “Every time I went back, he got closer. It sounds stupid looking back but it was more an ego thing; more about proving that I could do what he was asking without it impacting on me.”

The man told the police officer that Adams then began to touch him, beginning with his knee but this progressed and, said the man, he “went along with it to prove that it didn’t bother him.”

The man said: “It was a trust game – trust me and take off a piece of clothing.” The man said Adams at other times “like to crack open beers” and he had a “dry sense of humour.”

The jury then hears the man give a more detailed description of how that “game” developed, telling the officer that Adams eventually touched him indecently.

The officer asked: “Did he ask you if he could do that?” The man replied: “No, he didn’t.” The man then said: “I stood up, put my clothes on and left. I was in shock. I didn’t know what to think.”

Afterwards, he said, he had “got hammered.”

He said he believed that these encounters must have happened during the school holidays as none of the defendant’s family – including his wife – were in the house at the time.

The man estimated that Adams would have been in his 40s at the time. Asked if he thought that Adams knew he had hadn’t wanted him to touch him, the man replied: “I suppose he wouldn’t.

“I suppose it was a macho thing; it sounds stupid. I can’t find the right words.” The man said he felt uncomfortable, but Adams had told him that the longer the game went the stronger it showed he was. 

The first alleged victim who gave evidence in the trial described Adams as a “master manipulator”, saying he had groomed him.

Defence barrister Richard Dawson accused the first alleged victim of “fabricating evidence” and “twisting the truth”. The second alleged victim, the jury heard, was 15 when Adams sexually assaulted him.

But Adams denied ever doing that.

Six of the 15 charges faced by the defendant relate to two 'child' victims – either paying a child for sexual services – or indecent assaults on a child; and three of those five charges are specimen counts relating to multiple alleged incidents.

The remaining nine charges are sexual assaults.

The trial continues.