THE JURY in the trial of a former Warwickshire Police sergeant accused of sexually abusing teenagers will not begin to consider its verdicts until after Easter.
It had originally been expected that the trial of Timothy Lively, which began at Warwick Crown Court in early February, would have finished by now, but it has been beset by delays.
And Judge Anthony Potter has told the jury that although he will outline the law to them, he will not begin summing up the evidence until after the Easter break.
The 60-year-old, of Old School Mead, Bidford-on-Avon, denies a total of 26 charges dating from the mid-1970s to the summer of 1986 when some of the allegations were first made.
The alleged offences are said to have taken place in Stratford at a time when Mr Lively, now a successful businessman, was a Warwickshire Police officer or, before then, a cadet.
Mr Lively is accused of indecently assaulting eight boys, some of them at a children’s home where he was a volunteer, two while on camping trips and one at Stratford police station.
He is also said to have had sex with two of the boys, one of them at a boy’s club he was involved with running at the time.
The charges also include allegedly indecently assaulting three girls and raping one of them.
An allegation was first made in 1986 by a man who alleges he was abused in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Although no charges resulted from that man’s original complaint, there was an internal tribunal which prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC said led to him being dismissed from the force in 1988.
But Mr Lively, who said he had been ‘the youngest sergeant in the force,’ has told the jury that rather than being dismissed, he believed he was ‘required to resign.’
Commenting on his evidence about the tribunal hearing in her closing speech, Miss Cottage said: “He was very specific that this person and that person had embroidered their accounts.
“He says it’s a witch hunt, it’s all really unfair, that they went trawling through to find people to say things about me.
“There is a recurring theme of Mr Lively preparing his case, making out he has been really badly done by. He significantly down-plays evidence that has been given.
“We say he was lying in the witness box, and that he knew full-well what the allegations were.”
Stephen Vullo QC, defending, referred to one of one of the complainants who has said Mr Lively sexually assaulted him in a cell at Stratford police station after he had been arrested when he was 15.
Mr Vullo said it was a busy custody area at the police station, with a custody sergeant at a desk, and it was alleged Mr Lively had performed a sexual act on the boy in a cell on more than one occasion.
He argued if anyone came along the corridor in the custody suite, Mr Lively would have had seconds to pull his pants up and to persuade the boy, said to have been crying, to do the same.
Mr Vullo added at the time of the allegations in the 1980s the DPP found insufficient evidence to charge Mr Lively, and the material has been destroyed, but the prosecution was now asking the jury to come to a different conclusion.
The trial continues.
