A teenager allegedly abused two girls when they lived at the children's home where his parents were staff members, York Crown Court heard.

Michael Raine was in his mid-teens and the girls were aged between nine and 12 when he allegedly performed sex acts with them at the house where his mother, Isabella, and father, Sidney, were house parents, Andrew Woolman, prosecuting claimed.

The younger girl was abused weekly over a period of time, he added.

The older girl claimed Raine's indecency with her was not the first time she was abused at the now-closed National Children's Home in Harrogate.

Raine, now 36, of Swinton Court, Harrogate, denies an act of gross indecency with the older girl and two charges of indecent assault with the younger girl. All the offences are alleged to have occurred in the late 1970s or early 1980s when he lived with his parents at a flat attached to the house. Both girls had bedrooms in the same house.

Giving evidence, the older girl claimed that he came into the washroom of the house and made her perform a sexual act upon him.

"I was a child at the time, he was older than me. It had already happened before to me," she claimed.

The older girl, now a woman, agreed with Raine's barrister John Graham that she had made more serious allegations against Sidney Raine who had been found not guilty last December at a separate trial in Doncaster.

She gave contradictory evidence about whether she told Mrs Raine about the indecency and whether Mrs Raine had come into the washroom from the kitchen immediately after the abuse.

Opening for the prosecution, Mr Woolman alleged that Raine had indecently assaulted the younger girl once a week over a long period.

He claimed that on the first occasion, the girl had been sent to bed early when Raine entered her bedroom and made her perform a sex act on him. "On subsequent occasions, he did not have to tell her what he wanted. She knew from the previous experience," he claimed.

Mr Woolman alleged that when both girls went to Raine's mother, Isabella, she slapped the younger girl and called her a liar.

The trial continues.

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