A MAN accused of stringing up a boy by his ankles and whipping him with a fishing rod while sexually abusing him told a jury it was an “absolute, complete and utter lie.”

Former nightclub owner George Roberts remained seated in the witness box while giving his evidence at Bradford Crown Court yesterday because he is disabled and in poor health.

Roberts, 67, of Woodhouse Drive, Woodhouse, Keighley, said he had battled cancer and suffered a stroke since coming back to the UK in 2008 after spending 18 years living in Spain.

He denies 23 offences allegedly committed against three children in the 1970s and 1980s, including 15 offences of indecency with a child, seven counts of indecent assault and an offence of incitement to commit buggery. His accusers, a man and two women, are now middle-aged.

Roberts told the court he had been employed as a nightclub doorman and a mill charge hand before running a taxi business and owning Rascals pub and Rob Roy’s club in Keighley.

He was working up to 12 hours a day at the time of the allegations and had never used physical violence, or sexually abused, any child.

He had never strung up the boy by his ankles to a beam and whipped him with a fishing rod, shut one of the girls in a chest freezer, or sexually molested any of the children.

Roberts said he heard rumours in 1990 that he was a sexual abuser but there was equally unfounded gossip going round at the time that he had made £10 million selling drugs in his club and bought a villa in Spain.

He made strong denials of all the allegations from the outset, telling the police after his arrest that the male complainant was “mental.”

“It’s his way of trying to get some quick cash from Criminal Injuries,” he said.

Roberts, who is married for the third time, told the police he “never laid a finger” on the girls and was not a violent person.

Stating that the allegations made him feel sick, he told the police, he could not understand why the man was making such accusations against him.

“It is an absolute, complete and utter lie,” he said.

Questioned by his barrister, Rebecca Young, Roberts said his only criminal conviction dated back 40 years when he was fined £10 for assaulting a man in a fight.

During the trial, the male complainant told the jury he was hung upside down from a beam and also molested in a secret den made of straw bales during more than a decade of abuse.

He said Roberts made him and a little girl pick a card to see who was going to have to perform sex acts on him.

Roberts is also accused of showering naked with the girl, aged ten to 12, repeatedly asking her to go to bed with him and touching her breasts.

A second woman claims he touched her indecently and kissed her.

The trial continues.

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