A KARATE instructor is on trial accused of sexually abusing one teenage girl and sexually assaulting another.

Darren Lymer, of Anson Close, Marcham, near Abingdon, denies two counts of having sexual activity with a child and one count of sexual assault. The 50-year-old is alleged to have carried out the latter offence in August 2011 against one girl, aged 17, and the other two in January last year on a 13-year-old.

Giving evidence over a video link at Oxford Crown Court yesterday, the older girl said: “He’s very hands on. He would come and give me bear hugs.

“Initially I didn’t think anything of it, because he was a very forward, friendly person, but it was starting to make me feel uncomfortable as I had seen him looking down my top.”

She told the jury the defendant had gone on to grope her.

Asked if there was anything she could have done to stop him, she choked back tears as she replied: “Thinking back there were things I could have done. I could have stamped on his foot, I could have screamed and shouted. But I didn’t.”

She added: “I didn’t think he would do it to anyone else.”

The trial continues.

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