A MAN standing trial for a string of indecent assaults dating back to the 1970s tried to hypnotise his victims using a pocket watch, a court was told.
Edmond John Tudor Hillman, 57, of Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, is accused of seven indecent assault charges and one of gross indecency.
These include three counts of indecent assault on a girl under 13, two counts of indecent assault on a boy under eight, a further two counts of indecency with a child and indecent assault of a girl under 14.
Hillman, who is on trial at Chichester Crown Court, is accused of the offences from 1970 to 1975.
The offences are alleged to have taken place while his parents ran a children's home in West Sussex.
Prosecutors described how Hillman, who was a teenager at the time of the alleged offences, used a pocket watch to try to hypnotise the children before he abused them.
Hillman, who denies all of the charges against him, said he did not have a pocket watch at the time.
The trial continues.
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