A 36-year-old man played a finger puppet game to sexually assault a young girl when he was a teenager, a jury at Bradford Crown Court heard.

Paul Morrow pleads not guilty to 14 charges of indecent assault and one of attempted rape in Shipley in the 1990s.

He admits three offences of sexual assault against one of the two girls involved in the case.

Prosecutor Sarah Mallet alleged yesterday that Morrow repeatedly abused the elder girl, now a woman in her 30s, when he was in his mid teens.

The Crown’s case is that she was sexually assaulted between the ages of eight or nine and 14 but did not report it to the police until 2012.

The jury was told that Morrow, of Longroyd Crescent, Huddersfield, used his hands as finger puppets that “wanted to play” the first time he abused her.

Miss Mallett said he told her she would end up in care and not see her family again if she complained to her mother.

He is also said to have molested her under cushions on a sofa, in an overgrown garden and during games of strip poker.

She says she was physically sick on the one occasion when he allegedly tried to rape her.

Miss Mallett said the girl told school friends she was being abused and, when she was 16, she was treated by a psychiatrist.

She told the police she was abused for about six years.

The first time it happened, Morrow pretended his fingers were puppets called Freddie and Ferdinand. He then abused her under a duvet while she was in bed.

The younger girl told the police Morrow was very drunk when he indecently assaulted her.

Miss Mallett said Morrow told the police he had been having problems at school at the time of the elder girl’s allegations. He had been “young, stupid and curious” when he was 14. She was eight or nine and he believed she was his girlfriend.

He admitted touching her inappropriately but denied the wider allegations of abuse, and any sexual assault of the younger girl.

The trial continues.