A FORMER Bolton bingo caller alleged to have raped and sexually abused a schoolgirl in the early 1980s has told a court how his accuser once threatened to discredit him with his employers.

Edward Hill, who also stood as a Liberal Democrat candidate in Breightmet in local elections in 1999, 2003 and 2007, said the girl and her mother told him they could cause trouble at the Bolton Palais where he worked afternoon and evening shifts.

He told Bolton Crown Court: “I was terrified of losing my job.

“They knew who to talk to, to create doubt about my honesty and integrity.”

Hill told the jury he last saw the girl in 1985 after she rang him, claiming a man had kidnapped her and was keeping her at a flat in Breightmet.

But when he went to the address she gave she was not there and the teenager later turned up on his doorstep.

He denied accusations made by his alleged victim, now in her 40s, that he began sexually assaulting her at the age of 11 and then started raping her between the ages of 13 and 17.

“They are totally false,” 70-year-old Hill said.

When asked by his defence barrister Phillip Andrews about the woman’s claims that he made her wear his underpants, he said: “That is the most bizarre thing I have ever heard. I had no knowledge she was wearing my underpants.”

Hill, who has been married three times, told the jury how he had a career as a bingo caller and entertainer, working as both a Butlins Redcoat and Pontins Bluecoat after having to leave the Royal Navy due to ill health.

Hill, of Exford Drive, Breightmet, said that in his time in Bolton he has played guitar in church, served as a school governor and as a trustee of the Groundwork Trust charity.

He denies four counts of sexual assault and a further four counts of rape.

The trial continues.