A MAN accused of child sex offences says he was involved in consensual activity with a boy who told him he was 16, a court heard.

Richard Derek Coulson, 52, is on trial at Bournemouth Crown Court charged with three counts of sexual activity with a child relating to an incident in the toilets at Pier Approach, Bournemouth.

The allegations are said to have taken place on the morning of Saturday, May 7, last year.

Opening the prosecution’s case to the jury yesterday, March 8, barrister Richard Witcombe said the dispute in the case concerned the discrete issue over Coulson’s belief that the boy was 16 years of age.

Mr Witcombe told the court the boy was aged 14 at the time of the incident.

“Mr Coulson accepts the sexual encounters in broad terms but he says it was all consensual activity and there was to him an obvious age disparity, but he will say that he was told by the boy at the time that he was 16 and he had his 16th birthday two weeks earlier,” Mr Witcombe says.

Mr Witcombe told the jury the defendant had no reasonable belief that the boy was over the age of 16.

“In all the circumstances and knowing what he knew it was not a reasonable decision for Mr Coulson to arrive at that the boy was over the age of 16 years,” Mr Witcombe said.

The barrister said that the boy told police in interview he felt “shocked” after the defendant followed him into the toilet.

The jury was shown two interviews the boy had with police – one the day after the sexual encounter and another later in May.

The complainant told police when he was walking to the toilet block he went past Coulson and smiled after the man looked at him.

He said the defendant followed him into the toilets and entered the cubical he had gone into despite his effort to push the door shut. The boy said at this point he “froze”.

In his second interview, the complainant said the only words the defendant said to him were “hello” and after the encounter “let’s do this tomorrow, same time same place”.

The boy told the interviewing officer there were no discussions about his age.

He said he deleted a video from his phone, which had recorded in his coat pocket from the point he went down the stairs to the toilets until after the sexual activity. He told police he deleted it as he thought it was “a bit pointless”.

When asked by defence barrister Malcolm Gibney, Detective Constable Thomas Norman confirmed a photograph of the toilets taken by police as part of their investigation showed the cubical door where the encounter is said to have taken place opened outwards.

Coulson, of Merlewood Close, Bournemouth, denies three counts of sexual activity with a child.

The trial continues.