A 63-YEAR-OLD charged with historical child abuse said there was a ‘conspiracy’ against him, a judge told a jury.

Terence Sturgeon-Clegg, now of Irvine, in Ayrshire, Scotland, denies 12 charges of indecent assault, two of indecency with a child, three of cruelty to a person under 16 years of age and another serious sexual offence.

The offences are alleged to have taken place in Bicester during the 1970s.

Yesterday Judge Ian Pringle finished summing up the evidence at Oxford Crown Court and the jury was sent out to begin considering its verdict.

The judge said that one explanation put forward by Sturgeon-Clegg was that there was a “conspiracy” between the complainants.

He said: “His case is that they have all colluded, essentially, in these allegations against him.”

Nicholas Syfret, defending, said the accounts of the alleged victims were not true. He said: “The defendant has made a new life for himself. If he was such a monster of depravity, why has he removed himself from his prey?

“He switches off, he became a completely different person, if the crown’s case is right.”

The jury will continue its deliberations today.

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