Pensioner cleared of sex abuse claims

A pensioner has been cleared of sexually abusing two young girls at a children’s home after telling jurors they only sat on his lap while he read them stories.

Michael Coughtrey, 73, was accused of touching the youngsters inappropriately while visiting the Woolmer Drive home in Hemel Hempstead, Herts where his wife worked during the 1970s.

One woman, aged six or seven at the time, claimed he would be ‘huffing and puffing’ as he molested her, while the other said she was touched when she was aged between four and seven.

Coughtrey was arrested and charged after a former staff member at the home came to the to the supermarket checkout where one of the complainants worked 40 years after the alleged incidents.

But an Old Bailey jury of five men and seven women acquitted him of six counts of indecent assault after six hours and 23 minutes’ deliberations.

Giving evidence, Coughtrey said the children who lived at the home would run up to him when he arrived to pick up his wife, Linda.

His barrister, Caroline Allison, asked: ‘When you spent time with the children, what, if any physical interaction would there be?’

Coughtrey said: ‘Not a lot really. The odd one would sit on my lap when I read them a story or would stand there speaking to me but apart from that not a lot really.’

Ms Allison said: ‘You know the allegations against you…have you done that?’

‘No, I have not,’ replied Coughtrey, who admitted the first alleged victim, who cannot be identified, used to sit on his lap.

Quizzed about the second alleged victim sitting on his lap, Coughtrey continued: ‘Yeah, she would do it more frequently than the other girl.

‘She seemed as though she took a liking to me. Whether she treated me as a father figure, it’s hard to say really,’ he said.

Coughtrey was arrested on 9 March 2015 and told police his wife had worked in the children’s home.

‘He said he would visit to collect her from the home and would sometimes interact with the children and read them stories,’ prosecutor Peter Shaw told jurors during the trial.

‘But he denied kissing any of the children or touching them inappropriately.

‘He said the two complainants would sometimes sit on his lap but his hands would be out in front of him reading a book.

‘So he absolutely denied all of the allegations made by these two complainants.’

Coughtrey, of (17) Lowgate, in Spalding, Lincs, denied six counts of indecent assault and was acquitted of all charges.

ENDS