A former member of staff at a school allegedly abused a pupil during one-to-one music sessions, a court heard.

The alleged victim, now a man, claimed in evidence that he was indecently assaulted "once or twice a week" for months by Sean Ambrose Farrell, 50, of Abbeyfield Court, Riddings Road, Ilkley.

He claimed Farrell would smile while he carried out one kind of abuse at Ampleforth College's junior school, in North Yorkshire.

“I just remember the smile. I don’t know why it sticks in my memory, but it does,” he claimed.

“He would talk a lot about love. I remember him saying …. It would be amazing if we could go to bed together, be naked together.”

Farrell denies four charges of indecent assault.

Opening the prosecution at York Crown Court, David Bradshaw said Farrell had himself been a pupil at Ampleforth College boarding school in the Howardian Hills north of York. After he left, he returned for a year as a member of the college’s teaching staff during the 1980s and would help boys with music practice and tuition.

“He was to all intents and purposes a teacher there, being introduced as a teacher to pupils who regarded him as a teacher and called him Mr Farrell,” said Mr Bradshaw.

“The prosecution say the defendant took advantage of that boy at school, took advantage of his age and the situation he was in at boarding school.”

Farrell started by massaging the alleged victim’s shoulders and progressed to two other types of indecent assault, alleged the barrister.

“He (the boy) idolised him,” he alleged.

The complainant, giving evidence, alleged he felt that he was in some kind of relationship with Farrell and that the abuse blighted his life.

He claimed that when he was at university, he felt he had to prove he was heterosexual and be “one of the lads”.

He alleged he kept silent about what had happened to him for years until events prompted him to go to the police.

Under cross-examination he denied that he was making up his allegations.

The trial continues.