A FORMER deputy head teacher allegedly pressed himself up against pupils as they cleaned the blackboard, a jury has been told.

Preston Crown Court heard how 70-year-old Grahame Brennand, who taught at St John’s Primary School, Baxenden, allegedly made pupils sit on his knee as he marked their work.

On the seventh day of the six-week trial an alleged victim also claimed Brennand invited her and a second girl to his home to watch the Alien film.

The complainant, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said: “There was no reason for somebody to stand behind me when I was cleaning the board. Otherwise he could have cleaned the board himself. I was trapped. I had nowhere else to move. I wasn’t physically pinned but there was nowhere else I could go.”

When asked for her recollections by prosecutor Robert Golinski, the complainant said she felt movement from the defendant’s groin but only understood what it meant when she was an adult.

Recalling a separate incident, she said: “His head would sometimes go behind the neck. He wouldn’t kiss that area but you could feel his breath behind the neck.”

Describing the incident in which Brennand allegedly invited her and another girl to his house, he said he encouraged them to try on hats and then picked them up to look at themselves in the mirror.

The alleged victim denied colluding with any other of the other complainants and said she was only still in contact with one of her former classmates.

She said she hadn’t attended a class reunion several years ago and told the jury first she knew about complaints about Brennand was when a police officer contacted her in August 2016. She did concede she had been warned to expect a phone call from officers by a former classmate but denied they discussed Brennand in any way.

Brennand, of Calder Avenue, Preston, denies 48 counts of indecent assault and four of cruelty to a person under 16.

The alleged offences took place over three decades and involved 25 girls and two boys.

(Proceeding).