Woman tells of ‘years of abuse’

Friday 9th April 2010, 2:59PM BST.

The Assize trial is being heard in the Royal Court

A WOMAN told a jury yesterday that, as a girl, she suffered years of sexual abuse at the hands of the latest man to appear in court as a result of the historical abuse inquiry.

Clutching a tissue and red-faced from crying, the woman said that the abuse began when she was eight with ‘prolonged cuddles’ which progressed to touching and culminated in rape when she was 14.

The woman, now in her 40s, was giving evidence in the first day of the Assize trial of Leonard Miles Vandenborn, of Route de St Jean, St Lawrence.

The 62-year-old accountant, who was arrested as part of the historical abuse inquiry, is accused of indecently assaulting a second woman when she was a girl and it is likely that she will give her evidence today.

Mr Vandenborn denies 14 counts of indecent assault and one of rape, all of which are alleged to have happened over a 12-year period beginning in the 1970s.

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