Gordon Anglesea trial: Teen 'used as a toy' by ex-police chief

A children's home resident was abused over an 18-month period and "used as a toy", the trial of a former north Wales police chief has heard.

Former Supt Gordon Anglesea, 78, denies two indecent assaults and one serious sexual assault against one boy, and the indecent assault of another.

His trial at Mold Crown Court has been told that Mr Anglesea allegedly had links to convicted paedophiles.

It includes John Allen, who was jailed for life in 2014 for abusing children.

In video evidence played to the jury on Thursday, one former resident of the now closed Bryn Alyn children's home, Wrexham, described how Allen took him to different locations where he would be sexually abused.

In police interviews played to the court, the former resident, now an adult in his 40s, said: "It went on for months and months.

"I just got used as a toy - that's the top and bottom of it."

He described one occasion where he was taken to a property in Mold, Flintshire, where the prosecution has claimed he was abused by a man - later named as Mr Anglesea, of Old Colwyn, who was a police inspector based in Wrexham in the mid-1980s.

"One fella there, I can't remember his name, he was a nasty horrible piece of work," he said when quizzed by police.

"He has like a birthmark on his face and he had glasses. He's something to do with the police."

The witness said the individual threatened him.

"He was saying I'd never see my parents again, he would send me away, he had the power to send me away, far, far away, and I'd never see my family again."

He said he was told he "was scum".

Gordon Anglesea's trial began on Wednesday at Mold Crown Court

Asked how he knew the individual was a police officer, he said: "I've heard it mentioned - I don't know by who. He's something to do with authority."

The witness told police he now hated himself following the abuse he suffered while at Bryn Alyn.

"I can't let it go," he said.

On the first day of the trial on Wednesday, the prosecution told the jury that the alleged victims and witnesses had led "troubled" lives and Mr Anglesea's defence case was that the allegations were simply "lies and inventions".

Eleanor Laws QC, prosecuting, said: "The prosecution say that Gordon Anglesea knew he was safe, who would believe them against him, at that time a high ranking police officer?

"And that of course is his defence now: look at who they are, how can you believe them?"

The trial continues.