A PENSIONER denied raping a teenager when he was a younger man and threatening to “bury her in the garden if she told anybody”.

Malcolm Vickery, aged 72, formerly of Newport, but now from St Mary Street, Risca, is on trial Cardiff Crown Court, facing 31 counts against him.

He is accused of a catalogue of sexual abuse allegations against four complainants which stretch back to the 1970s.

Vickery has denied all the charges and says they are fictitious.

He has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of rape, three of attempted rape, 12 of indecent assault, five of sexual assault and one of indecency with a child.

Prosecutor Caroline Rees QC claims he committed the alleged offences between 1975 and 2011 against three female complainants and one male.

The defendant went into the witness box to refute the case against him.

Cross-examining him, Miss Rees put it to Vickery that he raped one complainant when she was in her teens.

The defendant told her he had not and asserted: “It was her idea to have sex.”

Miss Rees told him: “You raped her didn’t you? You threatened to bury her in the garden if she told anybody.”

Vickery again rejected her claim and told the jury of eight men and four women that these allegations were untrue.

The defendant is also accused of using his “Lassie-style dog” to carry out an “act of degradation” on her.

Miss Rees said of this alleged assault: “The more she was crying, the more he enjoyed it.”

Vickery is accused of carrying out sex attacks on a boy but he maintained he had saved him from abuse by another man. The prosecutor alleged he had made the complainant give him oral sex and that he had also held him down while this man raped him.

Vickery denied that he was involved in any assault on the boy.

Miss Rees claims the pensioner abused a third complainant when she was a little girl.

She said that during one alleged attack she “could smell the alcohol on his breath” and told how she was “frozen with fear”.

Miss Rees told the defendant: “She has told the truth, hasn’t she?”

He replied: “No, she’s telling lies.”

Vickery is accused of raping a fourth complainant, a woman, but said that any sexual intercourse between them was consensual.

The defendant is represented by David Elias QC.

The trial before Judge Rhys Rowlands is now in its second week.

Proceeding.