A former schoolteacher accused of raping a child and sexually abusing another has said their accounts are entirely fabricated.

Richard Taylor, of West Road, Bury St Edmunds, is accused of abusing two boys starting from 1999, one from the age of 12 to 15 and the other from the age of 10 to 11.

Taylor has denied all 19 charges, which include rape, indecent assault and gross indecency during a trial at Ipswich Crown Court.

The court heard Taylor taught children of similar age to those allegedly abused for 19 years at three different schools - however, he passed all teaching checks.

Closing the defence's case, Dominic Benthall said the prosecution's whole case was a fiction.

He suggested one possible motive for making the accusations was that both complainants have already received £16,500 in criminal injury compensation before any verdict has been given.

Mr Benthall further suggested that when the pair came forward after so many years of silence on the matters, neither of them were very happy with their lives and so colluded and concocted the allegations out of nothing.

“You don’t have any witness saying ‘I remember that day…’ except the complainants,” Mr Benthall said.

“There is a huge amount hanging on their say so alone.

“Nothing was said to anyone for years and years by either of these two people. It’s a lot of secrets for these boys to have kept if this is really going on,” he told the jury.

Mr Benthall said one of the complainants became “visibly uncomfortable” when he was asked to specify the sum of money paid in compensation under cross-examination.

The allegation of rape is said to have taken place in a passageway of Taylor’s house, between the kitchen and the bathroom, while others were present in the house.

Mr Benthall told the court no one who was there has said they heard any sound of a child being raped.

He added that Taylor spent 19 years as a teacher and was trusted around children and never reported for any kind of similar behaviour.  

Judge Martyn Levett then summarised the case and the jury retried to deliberate and decide its verdicts.