A FORMER Methodist minister who is accused of a series of indecent assaults on teenage boys told police he could not recall two of the alleged victims and had no physical contact with another.

The Reverend John Price, who is now retired, gave a statement to officers in which he said he had offered support to one of the complainants after his mother died.

He said on occasions that they were alone he spoke to him in a supportive way, but there was never any physical contact nor any form of inappropriate behaviour.

Price, 82, of Ash Tree Close, Bedale, North Yorkshire, is said to have hypnotised his alleged victims, although his trial at Teesside Crown Court has heard how they feigned being under his spell.

Prosecutor Paul Newcombe read a brief extract from a police interview with Price in which he said he could not recall two of the complainants.

They say they were abused after being tutored by Price when he was a minister at a Methodist church in York in the late 1970s.

One says Price offered to teach him relaxation techniques and he went along with what he was doing almost to please him.

He was unnerved when Price began rubbing his hands up and down his body down to the top of his thighs, as part of an attempt to “spread the energies”.

He said: “I felt very anxious about the whole thing and I was thinking the less I have to do with you from now on the better.”

The trial jury was also read a statement from the wife of one of the now middle aged men who said she was shocked when her husband revealed the abuse he was said to have suffered as a child.

The woman said in 1999 her husband seemed to change and became more withdrawn, not wanting to go out or see friends.

She put his behaviour initially down to the stress of a new job.

The prosecution has made references to a report in the York Evening Press newspaper, dating back to 1999, which detailed how in January of that year Price was convicted of four counts of indecent assault.

Price, 82, who walks with a stick, denies 14 counts of indecent assault on boys aged between 11 and 17 while he was a Methodist minister in York and Pocklington in the late 70s and early 80s.

The pensioner says the complainants are all lying.

Judge Howard Crowson said more evidence in the case would be heard on Friday before closing speeches and his summing up takes place on Monday.

The trial continues.