A supermarket employee raped a young girl when he was 12 years old, a jury heard.

Richard Smith, 22, is on trial at Bradford Crown Court accused of using the girl, four years his junior, as “a sex object” during his adolescence.

Smith, a butchery worker at Morrisons in Keighley, denies five charges of rape and one of indecency with a child when he was aged 12 to 14.

Prosecutor Simon Phillips told the court today that his alleged victim was aged eight to ten at the time.

Mr Phillips said Smith, of Bracken Bank Avenue, Ingrow, Keighley, told the girl: “It’s our secret.”

He alleged Smith raped and abused the girl in bedrooms and the living room at his home.

Mr Phillips said he threatened to spray an aerosol can in her mouth if she did not comply with his sexual demands.

She recalled that Goosebumps was on the television on one occasion when she was raped. On another, she was in her school uniform.

The court heard the girl kept the “secret” for years.

When she was 15, she confided in a boy of her own age and then told her mother and her doctor.

The police were alerted in December 2008 and Smith was arrested two months’ later.

He denied all the allegations.

Mr Phillips said the jury must decide if Smith had used the girl as “a sex object”.

The trial continues.