A man secretly filmed his teenage step-daughter in the bath as part of a catalogue of sexual abuse stretching over seven years, a jury heard yesterday.

The girl discovered a covert camera spying on her through a hole in the pocket of the 45-year-old man’s dressing gown hanging on the bathroom door, it is alleged.

Now in her late teens, she told a jury at Bradford Crown Court her step-father began indecently assaulting her when she was about eight years old.

She said he would come into her bedroom to molest her and he once sexually assaulted her in a paddling pool at the family home in Shipley.

The teenager said that last year she saw the camera attached to a wire in the dressing gown pocket and turned it round so it could not film her in the bathroom.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the teenager, denies two offences of indecent assault, two offences of sexually assaulting a child under 13, two offences of sexual assault and an offence of voyeurism.

All the allegations are said to have taken place between 2002 and last year.

Prosecutor Nigel Godsmark QC told the court the girl reported the man to the police in June last year.

She told officers she texted him when she was 13 or 14, saying that what he was doing was not right but he replied saying it was giving her experience.

Mr Godsmark said the teenager told a friend on Facebook she was being abused by her step-father before confiding in another girl who persuaded her to go to the police station.

The jury was told that officers searching the man’s home found video cameras and a dressing gown with small holes in the pocket.

Mr Godsmark said the man told the police he and the teenager were very close and used to playfight but he had never abused her sexually.

He said CCTV was a hobby of his and a covert camera he owned was boxed up in a wardrobe.

The trial continues.