2:55pm Wednesday 9th July 2008
By Chris Wickham
A pensioner has been found guilty of indecently assaulting two boys by "rubbing their balls" in Bushy Park.
Edward Prior, 72, of Fulwell Road, Fulwell, denied sexually touching a nine-year-old and an 11-year-old at the park in February, but was found guilty by a jury at Kingston Crown Court on Tuesday.
The younger of the boys, who was touched on February 22 while he was playing with a friend when their brothers were taking part in football training, told the jury he did not think the contact was accidental.
The court saw the boy - who cannot be named for legal reasons - give evidence in the form of a taped police interview and gestured that Prior rubbed his hand up the youngster's body.
When asked where he had been touched the boy said "it was my balls" and told the officer it lasted for "one to two seconds".
The boy said the attack left him "scared" because he "did not know what to do if it happened next time".
"I started crying because I didn't know what to do," he said.
Elizabeth Smaller, defending, asked the boy if Prior had bumped into him and used his hand to steady himself but this suggestion was rejected.
Prior told the jury: "My foot slipped on the ground. It might have been a clod in the grass. I might have put my hand out."
Prosecuting Richard Merz asked why he felt the need to approach the boy at all and asked if it was an excuse to touch him up? But Prior denied this and said if his hand did touch the boy's private parts it was accidental.
Prior was also found guilty of touching another boy in a similar way in the same area of the park, close to the National Physical Laboratory, on February 8.
When Prior was arrested on February 29 he was in possession of a double sided photograph, with each side having the rear of three naked young boys on it.
Prior claimed one of the photos was of himself naked as a young man from the waist down and said the others - one of young naked boys running from a policeman with a stick, one of a young female ballerina with her leg raised and one of a young boy body builder were a collection for drawing. He added that the bodybuilder had: "Got a body on him."
He will be sentenced at a later date.
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