A WOMAN told a jury that sexual abuse left her with post-traumatic stress disorder and gaps in her memory.
A witness – who cannot be named for legal reasons – said at Oxford Crown Court that she “blanked out” abuse by Terence Sturgeon-Clegg.
She yesterday told jurors he indecently assaulted her when she was a child in Bicester.
The 62-year-old, now of Irvine in Ayrshire, denied 12 charges of indecent assault, two charges of indecency with a child, three charges of cruelty to a person under 16 years of age and one charges of a serious sexual offence.
Opening the case on Monday, Oliver Saxby, prosecuting, said the allegations dated from the 1970s and involved seven people. He also said police officers were alerted to the allegations in 1997 and again in 2003.
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Yesterday, the woman said: “I had a lot of counselling. The easiest way to deal with it was just to make it disappear.”
The woman added that Sturgeon-Clegg had allowed two other men, who she knew as Steve and Ted, to abuse her as well.
She said: “They were told it was okay.”
The witness added that when she reported what had happened to the police, she was not initially believed.
She said: “The police lady that took me told me that I was lying, that it never happened.”
Later Mr Saxby asked her: “What sort of adolescence did you have?”
She replied: “Horrible.”
The trial continues.
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