A MAN reported having been sexually abused as a boy, years earlier, after being told the alleged culprit was seeking to foster or adopt a child.

The alleged victim said that on hearing the rumour, he felt compelled to report the physical and sexual abuse he claims to have suffered at the hands of Stanley Simpson in his childhood and early teenage years.

He claims Simpson regularly abused him, would punch or choke him if he refused his requests to kiss him and perform other acts, and, on one occasion regained consciousness feeling he had been raped, to find himself wrapped in a rolled up carpet in the defendant’s bedroom.

Durham Crown Court heard that as a boy he feared what Mr Simpson might do if he said anything about the abuse and, in any case, felt he would not be believed.

Giving evidence on the second day of the trial of the alleged serial child abuser, the man, now in his 40s, told the court that for years: “I just kept my mouth shut”.

Asked by prosecuting counsel Sarah Mallet why he kept quiet about it, the witness told the court: “He said he would kill me if I told anyone.”

But he said summoning the courage to make his complaint and outline the abuse he claimed to have suffered, was, “the hardest thing I have done in my life.”

The witness added that after making his complaint to police, he heard nothing more about the defendant fostering or adopting children.

His wife told the court her husband often spoke to her of the abuse he suffered as a child, but never previously felt able to report it to the authorities.

She said she never broached the subject, but when her husband felt able to speak about it, she urged him to report it to police

But she said it was only when he heard the rumour of the defendant seeking to foster or adopt a child that he did actually go to the police, on New Year’s Eve, 2005.

“When he heard that man was in a position to foster a child he couldn’t live with it if he didn’t do something to try to stop it, in case something happened to that child,” she said.

She added that although police did not, at that stage, seek to bring a prosecution, her husband was reassured on being told that a “question mark” was placed over the defendant so that he would never be able to foster or adopt.

Fifty-year-old Mr Simpson, of Peniston Road, Pennywell, Sunderland, denies a total of 34 charges relating to alleged sexual abuse of five boys and two girls, aged eight to 15, in Ouston, near Chester-le-Street, and on Wearside, over two decades up to the year 2000.

The trial continues tomorrow (Thursday January 28).