A FORMER pupil at an approved school has denied making up abuse allegations against his housemaster to secure compensation because he is unfit to work.

Roderick Ryall’s barrister also accused the alleged victim – now in his 50s and using a wheelchair – of being motivated by bitterness.

Mr Ryall, 58, is alleged to have sexually abused two pupils when he was a housemaster at the former Aycliffe Approved School, in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham.

A third alleged victim was said to have been abused at the age of nine by Mr Ryall while he was a Scout leader and director of social services in West Yorkshire.

Mr Ryall denies ten charges of indecent assault relating to the mid to late-Sixties at the approved school – the forerunner of Aycliffe Young People’s Centre, and in the mid-Seventies in the Sowerby Bridge area of West Yorkshire.

In 1988, he admitted four offences of indecent assault, two of gross indecency and another serious sexual charge.

The first of his alleged victims in the case at Teesside Crown Court was cross-examined by Mr Ryall’s barrister, Tania Griffiths, yesterday.

She described as nonsense a “cruel” points system in TUNISIA SICILY MALTA SARDINIA LIBYA Palermo Port El Kantaoui Cagliari Sfax Bizerte Gabes Xaghra Tripoli Medenine which was Mr Ryall manipulated his alleged victim so he was unable to leave the school.

She also suggested he made the complaint after learning of Mr Ryall’s child abuse convictions, and reading how victims of others had won compensation.

The alleged victim told the jury: “I don’t need the money.

He was there to care for these youngsters, not use them for his sexual gratification.”

Mr Ryall, of Wheatley Drive, Mirfield, West Yorkshire, is facing a trial expected to last three weeks.