A former fireman has gone on trial accused of "hunting out" young children to satisfy his sexual needs.

Malcolm Vickers, 55, of Brompton Avenue, East Bowling has already pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting one teenage girl, who was part of a group which offered sexual favours to men for money or cigarettes.

But Vickers, who was a fire officer at Bradford Central station for almost 30 years, has denied further allegations of indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl, three offences of indecency with a child and falsely imprisoning two other nine-year-old girls.

Prosecutor Richard Newbury said Vickers, a married man, admitted that during the school summer holidays in 1997 he visited Horton Park where a group of girls, aged 14 and over, hung about offering sexual favours.

He took one of the girls back to his home where he showed her "dirty videos" and gave her beer, it is alleged. Mr Newbury said after getting the girl to indecently touch him Vickers fondled her breasts and touched her thigh.

Another girl was also taken back to Vickers' home and she was given 20 cigarettes after performing sexual favours for him, he said.

Mr Newbury told the jury at Bradford Crown Court that matters took a much more sinister turn in October 1997 after the girls, who provided sexual favours, became more scarce.

"It may well be that the defendant's interest in such behaviour didn't similarly diminish and his interest in girls, in their young teens, progressed to more general paedophilia" said Mr Newbury.

"He began to hunt out young children for his own needs and his behaviour became more focused and possibly more desperate in order to satisfy his needs."

Vickers, who drove a green Rover car, is alleged to have grabbed a nine-year-old boy while he was out with his cousin - a girl of the same age - collecting conkers in Bowling cemetery.

Having shown them "dirty magazines" which he had taken from his car, Vickers is said to have exposed himself and tried to get the youngsters to indecently touch him, the jury was told.

In January last year there was a further incident in which Vickers offered to give two nine-year-old girls a lift after seeing them at a bus stop, he said.

The prosecution allege that instead of driving the girls home he took them into Bowling cemetery where he kept them locked in his car and again showed them sex magazines.

Mr Newbury said it was the Crown's case that Vickers was propositioning the girls to see if they were willing to provide sexual favours for him.

Vickers was arrested by a police officer who spotted the Rover near Bowling Park in February last year and when it was searched sex magazines were found under one of the seats, he said.

During his police interviews Vickers denied being involved at all in the incident with the young cousins, but Mr Newbury said the nine-year-old boy's fingerprint was later found on one of the magazines.

In relation to the two girls at the bus stop Vickers admitted offering them a lift but claimed that they found the magazines themselves after he stopped in the cemetery to relieve himself.

The trial continues.

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