Special needs teacher ‘abused boy in his car’

A special needs teacher befriended a teenage boy on Snapchat and sexually assaulted him in his car, a court heard.

Julius Edwards, 49, is accused of grooming two children in Surrey between March and May last year.

Edwards allegedly approached one of the boys on the social media app and began sending sexual messages and images, Kingston  Crown Court heard.

He then abused the lad in his car, it was said.

In his video interview played to the court the teenage boy said Edwards messaged him and arranged to meet him.

The witness said: ‘He never properly told me his name but his Snapchat name was Jules.

‘He sent me a request on Snapchat, I get lots, I thought it was a friend, I accepted it.

‘We started talking. He never said much about himself.

‘He just wanted to know about me. He said ‘send pictures, sexual pictures’.

‘I don’t know why I did but I did too.

‘I didn’t realise that it was because he wanted to do sexual stuff, this was only a few days before it all happened.

‘It was just like normal conversation ‘Hi how are you’ I said ‘who are you?’

‘It was just normal conversation and then he just started talking about sex stuff.

‘I thought it was a joke because lots of my friends do that.

‘Then afterwards he started sending pictures, I should have told my parents.

‘Then that night I started sending pictures as well.’

In the week before lockdown they messaged eachother on Snapchat and by the end of the week Edwards arranged an evening meeting near the boy’s home, jurors heard.

Edwards replied ‘cool’ when the boy told him he was only 13, it was said.

‘This man just walked up to me, he looked a lot older than I though he would be. I didn’t know what to do, I should have just run,’ the witness said.

The boy said he wanted to go home.

‘I was starting to get a bit scared and I just wanted to go home. I knew that at one stage it would involve sex, actually, if I stayed there for longer. I realised at that point he wanted to do sexual things with me.

‘He did try and talk to me afterwards but whenever he asked if I wanted to meet I said we can’t it’s lockdown.

‘I was scared that he knew where I lived.

‘He wanted to meet straight away, to finish off what he wanted to do.’

The boy said Edwards then told him in explicit terms what he wanted to do to him.

‘I asked him if he had contact with other people my age as well.

‘He just said it was none of my business.

‘I just wanted to forget it and move on.’

Bespectacled Edwards, who appeared in the dock wearing glasses with a black suit and grey tie, denies ever meeting the complainant.

The 50-year-old, of Farnborough, Hampshire, denies 12 counts of sexual activity with a child, one count of assault by penetration, one count of attempted sexual communication with a child, three counts of attempted penetrative activity with a child and two counts of failing to disclose his pin number.

The trial continues.