A CHOIRMASTER drove young boys home from choir practice before performing sex acts on them and swearing them to secrecy, a court heard.

Mark Burgess, 68, denies 52 sex offences against 13 children between 1976 and 2009.

Burgess, giving evidence at the Portsmouth Crown Court trial, denied violating boys after choir practice at All Saints Church vestry in Portsmouth.

The defendant admitted driving boys home but told jurors nothing sinister happened on those occasions.

Defence lawyer, Fern Russell, outlining one of the allegations from a former Portsmouth City Boys School student, said: ‘It is claimed you drove him to a car park and stopped your car before placing your hand on his thigh.

‘You then moved up and touched [him] over his trousers. This progressed to undoing his trousers and giving him oral sex. Did you do this?’

Burgess responded ‘no,’ before adding: ‘It was an exposed area.’

Following the alleged incident, Burgess was then accused of telling the boy ‘not to tell anyone’ but denied this was the case.

In a separate recollection from the school music room, the boy said Burgess had ‘put his tongue in (the victim’s) mouth’ with the boy recounting ‘feeling stubble’.

But Burgess denied the claim. ‘Certainly not,’ he said, before adding. ‘I was always clean shaven apart from on days off.’

Burgess, of St Chad’s Avenue, Hilsea, denies 27 charges of indecent assault, 17 of gross indecency with a child, five of buggery, two of sexual activity with a child and one attempted indecent assault.

Jurors have heard the former Portsmouth City Boys School music teacher was a choirmaster at St John the Baptist Church in Westbourne, and at All Saints Church in Commercial Road.