A lorry driver allegedly subjected two young girls to years of abuse because he had ’an insatiable appetite’ for children, a jury have been told. 

Pensioner David Milton has gone on trial at Exeter Crown Court accused of carrying out the historic abuse while he was living in Newton Abbot up to 35 years ago. 

He is alleged to have abused one girl for seven years when she was aged four to 11 and another when she was 14 or 15. 

He told the girls his activities were secret and they must not tell anyone, the jury were told. 

Milton, aged 77, of Howards Way, Newton Abbot, denies eleven offences of indecency against one girl and three offences of indecency and one of rape against the second. He says all the allegations are baseless. 

Mr Andrew Macfarlane, prosecuting, said Milton was living in an estate near Newton Abbot when he carried out the offences in the 1970s and 1980s. 

He told the jury: ’You may look at the defendant and think "what a shame to bring an old man here". We say the real shame is what he inflicted on two children who were vulnerable and of whom he took substantial and prolonged advantage. 

’We say he had an insatiable appetite for young children and that he had no inhibitions at all. He abused the younger child in a very insidious and powerful way. You could say she had been brainwashed by him.’ 

Mr Macfarlane said the younger girl was assaulted when Milton was acting as babysitter and the older girl lured into taking part in various sexual activities at a time when she was vulnerable and living away from her family. 

He told both girls to keep what he was doing secret and threatened them they would be taken into care if they told anyone what he was doing. 

The younger girl was so young when the abuse started that she did not realise what he was doing was wrong and only stopped him after going to sex education lessons at secondary school. 

She made a complaint to the police in the 1990s but no action was taken until the other complainant made disclosures more recently. 

Mr Macfarlane said Milton was interviewed by police and responded to all the allegations with ’a total and utter denial’.