Fred Talbot assaulted schoolboy in shared bed on barge trip, court told

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/23/fred-talbot-indecent-assault-bed-barge-court

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A schoolboy was indecently assaulted in bed by the television weatherman Fred Talbot during a canal barge trip, a court has heard.

The alleged victim said he was made to sleep with the then teacher because there were not enough bunk beds for all the boys on the excursion. Talbot then performed a sex act on him as they both lay naked, a jury at Manchester Minshull Street crown court was told.

On Thursday the trial was told that Talbot staged a naked “orgy” of drunken schoolboys which he joined in with before later sexually abusing another pupil in his bed on board a barge.

Both incidents were said to have taken place in the mid-70s at events organised by Talbot, who at the time taught biology at Altrincham grammar school for boys.

Five men allege that Talbot abused them when they were schoolboys. Four were pupils at Altrincham and the other met the accused while Talbot was undergoing teacher training in the north-east.

Talbot denies 10 counts of indecent assault in relation to the five complainants between the late 1960s and the early 1980s.

The third complainant to give evidence said on Friday that Talbot had returned from a pub with older boys on the barge trip and was drunk but “not completely inebriated”.

He said boys would take turns to sleep in Talbot’s bed because there were not enough single beds for everyone. When it was his turn, he said, he got into bed and the defendant “started talking to me about sexual stuff”.

Talbot began to indecently assault him and the schoolboy told him to stop, the court was told. The complainant – who estimated he was 14 at the time – said the defendant persisted and he kept pulling Talbot’s hand away. He said: “I was a very naive child and I couldn’t really understand it.”

Years later Talbot went into television and became a regular on the floating weather map in Liverpool’s Albert Dock for ITV’s This Morning. He was also a regular weatherman on the north-west programme Granada Reports.

The complainant said he wrote to the station when he was in his late 20s to tell them Talbot had abused him. “I wrote an anonymous letter to Granada Reports but obviously they could not act on it. It was just to say that I had been sexually assaulted on an occasion by this man. I think I was a bit angry at the time,” he said.

Suzanne Goddard QC, defending Talbot, said it was accepted that her client would sleep on the barge with a pupil but they would have been in sleeping bags in a top-to-tail position.

The witness replied: “That was not the case with me.”

Goddard said: “When you say you were naked next to him in bed, that simply did not happen.”

The witness said: “It did happen.”

He accepted that after leaving school he had visited the defendant’s home “a couple of times”, including for coffee on a date noted in a diary kept by Talbot, when the witness was aged 20, and on another occasion to borrow a record.

Goddard said: “You were prepared to go round to his house when you were 20 and spend time with him?”

The witness replied: “I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either.”

The barrister went on: “Is that, in fact, because nothing sexual happened between you and Mr Talbot?”

“No,” he said. “The incident took place.”

He agreed with Goddard that he had had a difficult childhood and later had a drink problem.

Goddard said: “Is there any possibility at all of you having completely muddled yourself up on what happened on that boat trip?”

The witness replied: “No. Absolutely not.”

The trial continues.