Pensioner aged 101 becomes oldest defendant in British legal history over 'historic sex abuse'

A 101-year-old man, thought to be the oldest defendant in British legal history, has gone on trial accused of a string of historical child sex offences.

Ralph Clarke, a former lorry driver, is alleged to have abused two girls and a boy, including one as young as seven, in his vehicle’s cab.

The offences are alleged to have been committed between 1974 and 1983.

Yesterday, the pensioner – who was born in March 1915 – entered Birmingham Crown Court with a white walking stick and was allowed to sit outside the dock during his trial.

Clarke, of Erdington, Birmingham, denies 17 charges of indecent assault, 12 offences of indecency with a child and two attempted serious sexual offences.

Judge Richard Bond told the jury of six men and six women he was “speaking slowly” for the benefit of the OAP and said they wouldn’t sit during the afternoon sessions.

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Opening the prosecution case, Miranda Moore QC said the defendant sexually abused the three children, who are siblings, in his lorry cab and his shed.

Moore said Clarke’s two female victims walked into a police station in August last year to make a complaint against the centurion.

She told the jury they were “tipped over the edge” when he turned 100 in March 2015 and “everybody was saying what a good life he had led”.

Moore said: “[The victim] alleges from the age of about seven or eight she was touched in a sexual way by the defendant in numerous places and in numerous ways. [She] said it was a daily event.”

Moore added that the victim remembers being in a “garden shed or a workshop”.

The court heard the second female victim told police Clarke blackmailed her by giving her 10p or 20p to buy sweets after the abuse in the lorry cab.

Moore told the jury: “She also remembers him doing things to her in the cab of the lorry.

“They would park in a yard somewhere and her expression was it was more aggressive when he was in the lorry. When things happened in the lorry cab she was eight or nine.

“She also remembers being in the workshop. She feels the incidents in the shed went on for years.

The court heard the male victim was also abused when he was under the age of 16 in the lorry cab and workshop.

Miss Moore said: “He was also abused in the garage workshop. There was masturbation and oral sex. He vividly remembers that the defendant would take his teeth out beforehand.”.

The court heard Clarke made “limited admissions” when he was interviewed by police but had pleaded not guilty to all 31 charges.

Miss Moore said: “It doesn’t matter how old you are, if a jury is sure that you have committed an offence then they will find you guilty.

“Age is no barrier to being tried as long as the trial is fair and the evidence is clear.”

The trial, which is expected to last two weeks, continues.