A 75-YEAR-OLD man on trial charged with sexually abusing a young girl told the jury he wept and said: "Are you crazy?" when first accused of molesting her 30 years ago.

Dinzey Hazel was allowed to sit down in the witness box while giving his evidence at Bradford Crown Court today because he has diabetes and high blood pressure.

He denies a total of ten offences of indecent assault and indecency with a child, dating from 1978 to 1986.

At the close of the prosecution case, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told the jurors they would be directed to return not guilty verdicts on two further allegations of indecent assault.

They were said to have happened when the girl was 12, when her evidence in court was that the abuse had stopped by then.

The complainant, in her early 40, has alleged that Hazel, of Church Street, Manningham, Bradford, abused her from when she was aged five until she was 11.

She told the police she froze the first time he sexually assaulted her.

She claims he then routinely touched her indecently and made her perform sex acts on him.

Hazel, a father-of-four, who has no previous convictions, said he came to the UK from St Kitts in 1959.

He moved to Bradford from the West Midlands in 1961 and did a variety of jobs, including foundry and scrap metal work.

Hazel denied ever touching the girl inappropriately.

In the 1980s, her mother asked him if he had ever molested her.

"I wept. I said 'Are you crazy? Are you mad? I don't do things like that'," he told the jury.

When he was arrested by the police in 2013, he again denied any wrongdoing.

Hazel said he was never sexually attracted to the child and he could think of no reason why she should go to the police with the false allegations.

He was asked by prosecuting barrister, Gerald Hendron, if he had ever lifted the girl up, saying he was stronger than Geoff Capes, and then laid her down on top of him to abuse her.

"It never happened," Hazel told the jury.

The trial continues.