A FATHER-OF-FIVE has spoken of his 'complete shock and horror' when he learned he was being accused of sexually abusing a young girl more than 30 years ago when he was himself a child.

Shabir Haider told a jury at Bradford Crown Court yesterday he was completely innocent of all the allegations made by his accuser, now a mother in her mid 40s.

"I have never touched anyone inappropriately. Full stop," Haider, 48, said from the witness box yesterday.

He denies eight charges of indecent assault at a house in the Bradford area when he was aged between 11 and 15.

The woman accuses Haider, of Branby Avenue, East Morton, of exposing himself to her, touching her sexually on numerous occasions and simulating sex with her.

She says he threatened to tell her mother she wore a skirt for PE lessons and was studying conception at school if she did not go along with his demands.

Haider told the court he was never alone with the girl at his family home because up to 16 people were sharing the small property.

Families of up to six adults and children would frequently stay there while looking for housing after coming to the UK from Pakistan in the late 1970s.

He claimed his mother was a strict disciplinarian who would tie him to the bed with flex and beat him with a mop handle for not going to the mosque.

Haider said he left school at 15 and went on to work in Holland as a waiter for 18 months.

In 1992, he went to Pakistan for around five years where he supervised the management of land and the building of a villa and a farm to expand his family's property portfolio.

He had been on friendly terms with the woman but he denied ever being sexually attracted to her or hoping to marry her.

He told the jury he had hardly seen her over the past 17 years.

Haider denied that one of his brothers looked through the letterbox at the family home and saw him behaving inappropriately with the girl when they were children.

A female relative was lying when she claimed she surprised him simulating sex with the girl on a settee in 1981, he said.

Haider said he had fallen out with members of his family because he had not received his share of the multi-million pound property portfolio he worked hard to expand while in Pakistan.

The trial continues.

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