Victim tells of alleged sex attack by ex Hampshrie FA chief Ray Barnes

The alleged victim, who was 16 at the time, said that Ray Barnes had offered to give him a driving lesson on their return journey from the 1983 FA Cup final.

He told jurors that Barnes let him take the steering wheel, then reached over and indecently assaulted him.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard that he had initially met Barnes at training sessions at Southampton Sports Centre and during one of these he had felt uncomfortable when Barnes tried to give him physiotherapy for a sprained foot.

The alleged victim said he thought about reporting the incident to the police in the 1990s when an article appeared about Hampshire Football Association’s vetting procedures, but decided to leave it because his job meant he was going away shortly.

Charles Gabb, defending, suggested that the defendant had never taken him anywhere in his car and asked why in his statement the alleged victim said that he was asked to other games after this. He replied that if he had implied that he was wrong.

Jurors also heard from a witness who said that he worked with Barnes at the Shipping Federation in Canute Road, Southampton, from 1963.

He said that Barnes had offered him driving lessons so they went to the New Forest, where Barnes suggested that they pull over in an isolated spot, then asked the witness if he could perform a sexual act on him.

The witness, who thought he was 16 at the time, refused and they drove back.

“I was absolutely shocked and disgusted because I trusted him,” he said.

Barnes, 74, of Grateley Close, Weston, Southampton, denies seven counts of indecently assaulting three different boys between the mid-1960s and 1983.

The court heard extracts from diaries that Barnes has kept over some of the relevant years and his police interviews, in which he repeatedly denied the charges and said that he did not know two of the alleged victims.

Proceeding.