Woodland child sex charge denied

Mr McIntosh denied the offences at the High Court in Edinburgh

A young man has denied abducting an eight-year-old boy and carrying out sex acts on him in a Borders woodland.

Darren McIntosh, 17, of Galashiels, claimed another youth was to blame for anything which might have happened to the child on 23 August last year.

The boy, who cannot be named, told the High Court in Edinburgh via CCTV that McIntosh took him to the woods where he stripped and blindfolded him.

He said he had then been subjected to sex acts. The trial continues.

The court heard the boy and his friends were approached by two teenagers - one in a hooded top and the other in a Rangers top who spoke to them.

The boy, now aged nine, told the court: "He said: 'Do you want to hear a secret?'

"Then he took me, like, to the woods and I said: 'You can tell me now'

"He said: 'Your friends might be following us'. So we walked on to the woods."

Sex acts

The boy said the teenager in the Rangers top suggested building a gang hut then told him to take his clothes off.

When he refused, he was stripped of his tracksuit trousers, T shirt, boxer shorts and socks.

"He said lie down - I lied down then he blindfolded me," he said.

"Like, he blindfolded me with my clothes, with my top. He, like, put it over my head.

"I was crying."

He then told the court how the older boy had carried out sex acts on him.

The child added that as he lay naked and blindfolded he had heard his stepfather shouting his name as he searched the area.

The alarm had been raised by a friend with a mobile phone.

Later the nine-year-old said he got dressed and the older boy took him to a nearby shop.

It was there that his stepfather chased the youth who had taken him to the woods.

'Bad things'

Defence QC Neil Murray asked the boy if it was possible his stepfather had blamed the wrong person.

He said: "The boy who did bad things to you in the woods - what I am suggesting to you is that is not the boy your father saw.

"Would I be wrong?"

The nine-year-old told him: "Yes".

Darren McIntosh denies abducting the boy "with intent to commit a sexual offence upon him" and carrying out sex acts.

He blames another youth for anything that might have happened to the youngster.