A FORMER housemaster at an approved school has described sexual abuse allegations made against him as “absolute and complete rubbish”.

Roderick Ryall branded one of his accusers “a man of great imagination” during police interview after his arrest last year.

Mr Ryall, 68, is alleged to have abused two teenage pupils at Aycliffe Approved School, in County Durham, in the mid-to-late Sixties.

He is also accused of molesting a nine-year-old boy in the mid-Seventies when he was director of social services in Calderdale, West Yorkshire.

Mr Ryall was arrested in May last year after the allegations were made, but vehemently denied the claims when he was questioned about them.

Transcripts of the lengthy interviews have been read to a jury at Teesside Crown Court over the past two days.

It was put to Mr Ryall by detectives that he abused one boy at the school after grooming him.

He said: “It is absolute and complete rubbish, totally. He is a man of great imagination... he is an utter and complete fantasist. It is utter and complete malicious fabrication.”

During the interviews, Mr Ryall said the complainants had used knowledge of sex offence convictions from 1988 to jump on a bandwagon.

The alleged victims have been accused by Mr Ryall’s barrister, Tania Griffiths QC, of making up stories to win compensation.

Mr Ryall, of Wheatley Drive, Mirfield, West Yorkshire, denies ten counts of indecent assault on the three alleged victims.

The jury has been told that Mr Ryall, who graduated from both Oxford and Cambridge universities, has previous convictions for abusing young people.

In 1988, at Leeds Crown Court, he admitted four offences of indecent assault, two of gross indecency and a charge of buggery.

Yesterday, Ms Griffiths branded the latest investigation, by Durham Police, a farce from start to finish – an accusation that has been denied.

While cross-examining the leading investigating officer, Detective Constable Darren Cresswell, she said: “You formed the view that he was a convicted paedophile, you did not need to do any investigating, you just had to get three of them in front of a jury and through prejudice he would be convicted. That was your view, wasn’t it?”

Det Con Cresswell replied: “No.”

The trial continues.