A JURY was today set to start considering whether a retired senior magistrate from North Yorkshire is guilty of repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl more than 20 years ago.

Barry Sampson, 74, a former chairman of the Tadcaster and Selby benches, is accused of forcing the girl to perform sex acts on him and of committing other sexual assaults.

The prosecution and defence cases were completed at York Crown Court yesterday and Judge Jim Spencer was due to start summing the case up today, before sending the jury out to consider its verdict.

Sampson, of Leeds Road, Tadcaster, now faces five counts of gross indecency, eight of indecent assault and one of cruelty to a child.

He was initially charged with 25 offences, but was found not guilty of committing six indecent assaults and three acts of gross indecency on Judge Spencer's direction, due to lack of evidence.

Two of the indecent assaults were merged into one offence, as the incidents were alleged to have happened at the same time.

The offences are alleged to have been committed from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, when the girl was aged between 13 and 17.

Prosecutor Simon Hickey put to Sampson that he abused the girl safe in the knowledge that he, an adult, would be the one believed if she ever spoke up.

"No," Sampson said.

"Did you ever in your capacity of chairman of the magistrates ever come across cases such as this?" Mr Hickey asked.

"Never. I can't recall it," Sampson said.

Mr Hickey asked the defendant if he ever touched the girl, now a woman of 38, knowing he would not leave any marks.

Sampson replied: "It would never have entered my head."

Deborah Sherwin, for Sampson, asked her client why he thought his accuser had made the allegations.

"I have no idea whatsoever," Sampson replied.

He said the woman had been known for "liking the limelight" and as an attention seeker.

Ms Sherwin told the court of her client's previous good character, pointing out he has no previous convictions.

Asked by Ms Sherwin about his background and community work, Sampson said he had played a leading role in his local church, as both a patron and a warden.

Character references were read out on Sampson's behalf, including one from retired police chief superintendent John Chaddock, who served in Tadcaster as a chief inspector.

Ms Sherwin said: "He has never had the remotest interest in anything like this (paedophilia). How likely does it seem that something like this would come out of nowhere?"

Updated: 10:34 Friday, April 16, 2004