An Argyll man has gone on trial before a jury accused of indecency towards two boys, allegedly after plying one of them with alcohol and cigarettes.
Barry Gunn, 37, appeared at Oban Sheriff Court and denied abusing a boy at various locations in Appin, north of Oban, over a five-year period when the boy was between the ages of eight and 13, from 2004 to 2009.
He has also denied abusing a second boy, aged 11, by getting into bed with him and touching his private parts in 2009 at a house in Appin.
Gunn, of The Cottage, Lettershuna, Appin, is alleged to have abused the first boy at a caravan at the rear of a garage in Appin, Calasona, Port Appin, and in a van parked at Creran Road, Appin, by touching the boy’s private parts and making the boy touch his, repeatedly showing him pornography and supplying him with alcohol and cigarettes.
Giving evidence in a closed court, the first boy, now 19, said Gunn started giving him cans of beer or cider and cigarettes when he was nine.
He said the sexual abuse stopped when he was about 14 and he stopped going to see Gunn. He said he later decided to go to the police after confiding in his landlady when he was 16. She encouraged him to tell his father, who took him to the police.
He added: “I lost my childhood.”
Defence solicitor Laura McManus said: “I would suggest to you that rather than Barry Gunn giving you cigarettes, you obtained them on your own. You would take drinks from his can.”
“Not true,” he replied.
She continued: “I’m suggesting to you that what you are saying is not credible. If you were being abused you would have avoided the caravan at all costs.”
The witness replied: “I was an impressionable child.”
The trial continues.
