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	Former Choirboy Tells Court of Sex Assault by Verger Western Mail October 26, 2010 http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/10/26/former-choirboy-tells-court-of-sex-assault-by-verger-91466-27543627/ A SCHOOLBOY was abused then seriously sexually assaulted by a married man who was head verger at a Welsh cathedral, a court heard yesterday. Colin James Adams, now 57, who has since left the Llandaff diocese to take up a church post in Newcastle, groomed the boy with gifts of books and cards, gained the trust of his family then began intimately touching him, alleged prosecutor Sue Ferrier at Cardiff Crown Court. Adams denies all charges. A man now in his 30s who claims to have been the churchman's victim told the jurors he had been assaulted at Llandaff Cathedral, also in the Bridgend area where Adams went to other churches, and on a visit to Southwark Cathedral on London's South Bank. "It was supposed to be for my education and to enhance my spirituality," the witness, who at the time had ambitions to be ordained into the church himself, said in a video interview. "I say now to myself, why didn't I, as a kid, stop it? "There was no one I could tell – if my mother had known she would have had a heart attack on the spot. I still haven't been able to tell her all the details." He claimed those details included struggling on the floor inside a church and being forced into a sexual act when he was a choir boy. "He had always been touchy-feely, that had started to become the norm – but nothing like this," he said. "I was saying 'get off me, leave me alone' and I even remember telling him it was unclean in the biblical sense – I quoted Leviticus to him. But he wasn't listening and he didn't stop. "When he had finished, he got up and acted as if nothing had happened." Adams now lives at St Nicholas' Cathedral, Newcastle, and during the time of the alleged abuse was residing with his family in a tied cottage on Llandaff's Cathedral Green, where the witness says he was also indecently touched. The verger denies one charge of buggery and seven of indecent assault. His accuser told the court yesterday: "It would always be in the drawing room of the cottage... touching me. "There would be encouragement for me to go there to look at some papers or a book he would say he had borrowed for me. As far as possible I used to avoid going to his house." While in school, he served as an altar boy which involved preparing the church before a service and clearing up afterwards. He alleged: "I was always being watched – he took every opportunity to get me on my own. He was always talking about the importance of closeness, being close to people and said I could trust him with any problem I had. "I was too embarrassed to say anything to my parents about what was happening and fearful no one else would believe me. "The church is a sacred institution and he had been in the church for years – I was nothing. Who was going to believe me?" A complaint was made to the police last year.
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