A FORMER Warwickshire Police sergeant has denied abusing his position at the time to sexually abuse a number of teenagers.
Giving evidence on his 60th birthday, Timothy Lively claimed he was allowed to resign from the Warwickshire force, rather than being dismissed, following an internal hearing into allegations when they first surfaced in the 1980s.
Mr Lively, now a businessman, of Old School Mead, Bidford, denies a total of 26 charges dating from the mid-1970s to the summer of 1986 when some of the allegations were first made.
They are said to have taken place in Stratford at a time when Mr Lively was a 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 and committing an act of gross indecency with another.
An allegation was first made against Mr Lively in 1986 by a man who the jury has been told 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.
Sitting in the witness box in a special chair because of a back problem, Mr Lively was asked by his barrister Stephen Vullo QC: “When you left the tribunal in February 1988 did you ever think you would start to give evidence on these matters on your 60th birthday.” He replied: “Never.”
He said he had joined the police as a cadet at 16, and had been required to do voluntary work, so had done so at a children’s home in Stratford.
Mr Lively, who said he then continued to do voluntary work at the home after becoming a Pc until 1979, said he had joined CID in 1982 and became ‘the youngest sergeant in the force’ in 1986.
It is alleged some offences took place at the home in the late 1970s, but Mr Lively said he never stayed overnight there, and that it had not been possible to just walk in without being seen by someone in the office – and if no-one was in the office the door would be locked.
Two men also say they were indecently assaulted during camping trips when aged 15, and one also claimed on various occasions when he was 15 and 16 at a police station.
Mr Lively denied any of those alleged incidents had taken place.
He faces five charges of committing various acts against one of the two boys whose complaints in the 1980s led to him being investigated at that time, culminating in the tribunal hearing.
Mr Lively said the first he knew of that boy’s complaint was a few weeks after he had dealt with him for a burglary at a hotel.
But he said he was later called in to see the regional commander and was told the boy ‘had admitted he had made it all up to get me into trouble, and that he had made a withdrawal statement.’
He said he believed the matter was over, and he was asked by Mr Vullo whether it had been a relief to be told at the end of 1987 that the DPP (Department of Public Prosecutions) were not going to charge him with any offence, and Mr Lively replied: “Yes indeed.”
After he stopped volunteering at the children’s home, Mr Lively had been involved with a boys’ club whose members were also taken on camping trips, for which he was allowed paid time off without it coming from his holiday entitlement.
The tribunal had heard from another teeanger who it was said alleged that Mr Lively had had sex with him at the club and had indecently assaulted him at another address.
But Mr Lively complained: “The police had taken him to police headquarters the night before the tribunal, and they’d put him up and they had schooled him on his evidence… and shown a picture of me.”
And he insisted the allegations at the tribunal in respect of that complainant were of indecent assault only.
Mr Vullo said the minutes of a Police Committee meeting in 1988 showed there had been a ‘substantiated complaint’ against a police sergeant of indecent assault on a teenager ‘at the sergeant’s home and a youth club.’
It said the DPP had said there was insufficient evidence to justify criminal proceedings, but the officer had been suspended and had appeared before a disciplinary tribunal which found him ‘guilty of conduct likely to bring discredit on the force, and he was dismissed.’
The tribunal was said to have found the unnamed sergeant had used his position of trust as a serving officer or youth leader to make improper approaches to four young men with the intention of forming homosexual contacts.
Mr Vullo asked: “Does that match what you recall was found against you?” Mr Lively replied: “Yes.”
The trial continues.
