A LONG-SERVING policeman has told of 40 years of devastation after being allegedly sexually abused by a dairy farmer turned newspaper columnist.

Teesside Crown Court heard the officer had been a primary school pupil when Gordon Currie got him to help perform a sex act beside his milking parlour in Bagby, near Thirsk.

Mr Currie, 81, of Wath, near Ripon, denies gross indecency between October 1971 and October 1976. He is alleged to have become aroused while alone with the boy, who had helped him bring the cows in from the fields for morning milking.

The officer told the court before the incident he had regarded Mr Currie as "a kind gentleman", adding: "I was not very worldly wise, I only knew a bull jumped on a cow."

The police officer, who said he had been an aspiring farmer at the time, said he never returned to Mr Currie's farm and when he saw him at an event to mark the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, he felt sick.

He said after the incident, while he felt no malice towards Mr Currie, he questioned his sexuality and kept the alleged incident secret for decades fearing he would be ostracised.

He said he attempted to report it to colleagues within his force in 2000, but was ignored.

However, after suffering depression for many years and following an internal investigation into an unrelated matter, matters came to a head.

He said: "Every time things were bad, this reared its head."

David Potter, defending Mr Currie who was arrested last August, said his client had once referred to the complainant as one of his "right-hand men" in the milking parlour.

He suggested the incident had never happened and questioned why, if it had, the police officer had not told his parents or why he claimed to have been so unworldly at the time.

The officer said: "I might have got a whack for causing trouble.

"I am a police officer. I have nothing to gain from lying."

The trial continues.