Both complainants claim Father Michael Higginbottom, 76, targeted them separately while they boarded at the now closed St Joseph’s College in Upholland, Lancashire.
But Higginbottom, who taught at the college for boys aged between 11 and 18, has told a jury at Burnley Crown Court he could not remember either of them and said he had not sexually abused anybody.
The court has heard the first complainant told a friend about the alleged abuse at St Joseph’s in the late 1970s, and went on to report the matter to the police in 2014.
Last week, jurors were told by lawyers for Higginbottom that the complainant had a conviction for fraud by false representation and put it to him that he was someone prepared to lie to get money, which he denied.
On Tuesday, the jury heard a number of facts agreed by the prosecution and defence in the trial – including that the fraud took place from the beginning of 2013 to 2015.
They heard that an earlier sex abuse trial took place at Liverpool Crown Court in April 2017 involving only the first complainant, and that Higginbottom was convicted in relation to the alleged offences.
However, details of the complainant’s fraud conviction were not at that time available and so were not presented to the jury.
In November 2018, the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, quashed Higginbottom’s convictions and ordered the case be retried on the basis the…
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