Bristol taxi driver faces 22 sex charges

A RETIRED taxi driver plied teenage girls with alcohol and cannabis before sexually abusing them, a jury has heard.

Easton Williams, 72, would befriend young girls by offering them money and gradually grooming them until they would agree to play drinking games, Bristol Crown Court was told yesterday.

Williams, of Ashley Road, St Paul's, denies a total of 22 charges relating to four complainants.

They are: three counts of indecent assault and one of rape against one girl; two indecent assault, two acts of gross indecency and one rape against a second girl; six indecent assaults and one attempted rape against a third female and six indecent assaults against a fourth.

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The offences are alleged to have taken place between 1992 and 2002.

Don Tait, prosecuting, said Williams, a taxi driver for many years, would make "inappropriate sexual comments" in front of young girls and even spoke of "breaking them in".

He said Williams was in the habit of exposing himself to girls.

Williams was arrested years later when one of the women went to speak to a police officer at Operation Bluestone, a specialist unit that deals with sexual assault, in 2011, and claimed she had been sexually abused by the defendant when she was 14 or 15.

Mr Tait said: "She also candidly admitted to police that she had been blackmailing him, to not inform the authorities what had been going on."

He said that, as a result of information given to them, police interviewed three other females who confirmed they remembered being given alcohol and cannabis before being told to expose their breasts and private parts and being sexually abused. One girl said she had passed out and came round to find Williams on top of her, trying to have sex with her. When she protested he paid her £50 to keep quiet, the court was told.

Two of the girls claimed he had raped them during the games.

Mr Tait said one of the girls had gone to the police about a rape several years ago but been unable to go through with her complaint.

"The prosecution says that is important, because it goes to show this has not been recently made up," he said.

Williams was arrested on three occasions following the allegations.

He claimed one girl was greedy and he would pay her £100. Williams dismissed another girl's claims as "complete nonsense" and described another as a "naughty little devil", who would strip of her own accord.

The case continues.