A MINIBUS driver accused of being a multiple child rapist was arrested when the mother of an 11-year-old girl he is alleged to have sexually abusing posted messages about him on social media, a jury at Bradford Crown Court was told.

Martin Hostler is on trial facing 40 offences involving five children in the Bradford district over a period of more than a decade.

He is accused of repeatedly raping three of the girls and bribing the youngsters with money and plying them with alcohol.

Hostler, 49, formerly of Otley Road, Barkerend Bradford, was babysitting the girls when he abused them, between 1995 and 2006, prosecutor Karma Melly told the jury yesterday.

She said three of the children were often left with Hostler because their mothers were heavy drinkers who spent a lot of time in the pub.

Miss Melly said he was arrested after the mother of an 11-year-old girl he was convicted of abusing posted allegations about him on Facebook 20 years later.

The court heard that the first of the five complainants went to the police after she saw the Facebook posting saying that Hostler was a sexual abuser of children.

Miss Melly told the jury that Hostler had been convicted of abusing the woman's daughter in 1993.

After the first complainant came forward, the police contacted other women who had spent time with Hostler when they were children.

Miss Melly said the first girl Hostler is on trial accused of abusing recalled him getting into bed with her smelling of beer.

He went from groping her when she was 12 to raping her so often that it "became a normal part of her life".

She began drinking alcohol regularly and she played truant from school to visit Hostler, Miss Melly said.

When she was in her 20s, he again touched her indecently and pulled her down the stairs.

Hostler, now of Cumberland Court, Headingley, Leeds, is accused of abusing the second girl from when she was aged eight.

Miss Melly said he touched her indecently and raped her, saying "she could do nought about it."

When her brother walked in on them, Hostler told the little boy they were "playing a game," Miss Melly alleged.

He is alleged to have raped the third girl "numerous times" when she was aged ten to 12.

Hostler is said to have asked the fourth girl to share a bath with him. There was children's underwear in his bed when he sexually abused her, she said.

Miss Melly alleged that Hostler touched the fifth girl while she pretended to drive his minibus, and offered her £20 "to have some fun".

She said: "He had a sexual interest in pre-pubescent girls and through luck or planning he got himself in a situation where he had access to them."

Hostler denies 21 charges of rape, ten allegations of sexual assault, one charge of causing actual bodily harm, seven of sexual activity with a child and one of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

The trial continues.