Retired vicar denies indecent assaults but admits ‘children sat on lap’

UNITED KINGDOM
Get Hampshire

May 29, 2014 By Stephen Lloyd

Retired vicar Brian Spence denies nine counts of indecent assault on four girls aged under 16 between 1995 and 1999

A retired vicar from Hook has told a court that children often sat on his lap in Sunday school and on other church occasions.

But 74-year-old Brian Spence, of Nursery Close, denies his actions amounted to nine counts of indecently assaulting four girls aged under 16.

All the offences are alleged to have taken place between 1995 and November 1999 when he was vicar of St John the Baptist Church in Crowthorne.

Spence, who was more recently priest-in-charge at St Mark’s Church in Englefield before he retired, entered the witness box at Reading Crown Court on Tuesday (May27).

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