A “TRUSTED” vicar sexually abused a young teenager while he helped him through a family emergency, a jury has heard.

Graham Doyle, 69, is on trial at Bradford Crown Court accused of two counts of indecent assault against the boy, who cannot be named.

The offences, which he denies, are alleged to have taken place during Doyle’s time as vicar at St Oswald’s Church in Little Horton, where he served as a minister from 1986 to 1991.

Opening the case yesterday, prosecutor Andrew Semple told the jury that Doyle allegedly assaulted the boy as they sat on the sofa together when he visited him at the vicarage, lowering his arm from his shoulder to his waist and groin.

Mr Semple said that Doyle would undo the boy’s trousers and perform a sexual act on him.

The boy said Doyle’s conduct stopped when he went to stay with family in a different area of the country, but added that when he later returned to Bradford, the defendant showed him a house and said: “I’ve bought that for you.”

Mr Semple said that the alleged abuse was something that the boy “may have wrestled with for much of his adult life”.

When the man reported the allegations to police in 2014, Doyle was traced to his home in Killyon Hill, Athlone, County Westmeath, Ireland, where he admitted knowing the alleged victim and his family, but denied “anything sexual had happened at all”.

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In an interview with police in 2014, the man said of Doyle: “I was searching for a father figure. Someone to look up to, be like.”

Asked about the incidents on the sofa, the man said: “He’d put his arm around me. Then he’d start playing.”

While giving live evidence yesterday, David Toal, defending, put it to the man that Doyle had never abused him sexually.

In response, the man said: “You’re a liar. He’s a vicar. Tell him to swear on the Holy Bible.”

Asked whether he had a clear recollection of the incidents, the man said: “I certainly do. Some things in life stick in your memory.”

Mr Toal said that in a written statement to police in November 2014, the man said that Doyle had abused him in three separate incidents, but in a verbal interview a month later, when asked how many times he had been assaulted, answered: “I don’t know.”

Asked by Judge Colin Burn whether he remembered the alleged abuse happening more than once, the man said: “Yes. I know that it happened more than once.”

The trial continues.