A MAN accused of sexually assaulting a child performer while lifting her on stage in an amateur musical production told a jury that even a professional dancer would be incapable of such a movement.

Paul Marsden, 62, denies indecently touching the girl when she was waiting in the wings in her leotard and while they were dancing in front of the audience.

Marsden, of Daisy Hill Back Lane, Bradford, pleads not guilty to one allegation of attempted rape and six counts of indecent assault involving the girl, and a single charge of indecently assaulting a second girl, aged 16 or 17, by dangling keys down her front.

Prosecutor Kate Batty alleges Marsden repeatedly molested the younger girl more than 30 years ago.

During the trial at Bradford Crown Court, the complainant said that he abused her in his bathroom and kitchen and on theme park rides.

Marsden is accused of attempting to rape the girl after pushing her head into a cardboard box.

She told the police she would say the Lord’s Prayer while he was sexually assaulting her.

Marsden, who has worked as a driver and an electrician, told the court yesterday that he never touched either girl.

He said that following his marriage, he shared his wife’s interest in amateur dramatics and operatics.

He recalled the musical in which the girl accused him of abusing her as taking place on a very small stage. There was no room to wait in the wings and he never lifted her high in the air as she stated.

Although he did sometimes lifted the young dancers, it was either straight up by the waist in a quick, controlled movement or in a “fish dive” lower to the floor.

All the lifts he performed were simple ones and even a professional dancer would struggle to perform what the girl alleged, Marsden said.

He told the court he never walked round his apartment in a state of some undress and had never possessed a pair of pink Y-fronts, as alleged by the girl.

Marsden denied encouraging a group of girls visiting a zoo on a hot day to take their tops off.

He refuted the suggestion that he said he would buy sticking plaster to cover their nipples.

The trial continues.