Boy said he fell asleep on train

The 10-year-old had gone missing from an amusement arcade on Bognor seafront on July 11 last year.

Lewes Crown Court heard he had been seen by a taxi driver, who alerted police at 3am the following morning at Barnham station.

The child told officers he had fallen asleep and when he arrived at Barnham he had been given £20 to get a taxi by a man he met called Paul.

But later he was interviewed by detectives and revealed he had been sexually abused in a remote wood near Barnham.

Anthony Valentine, 46, of Boltro Road, Haywards Heath, denies kidnapping and indecently assaulting the boy.

PC Anthony Crisp drove the boy to Bognor police station after he was found.

Yesterday, he told the jury: "During the course of the journey he said he had been to London and fallen asleep on the train. He said the man had given him £20."

Sergeant Gary Fisher said he and a colleague went to Barnham station where they saw the boy in a lay-by. Valentine was walking away.

The officer said when he was arrested he noticed the defendant's trousers were wet and muddy.

He told the jury: "I said 'Your trousers are quite wet'. He replied 'They are always like that'."

Mr Fisher denied Valentine appeared to be shocked when he was arrested on suspicion of abducting the boy.

The prosecution accuse Valentine of luring the boy away from the amusement arcade with the promise of presents, taking the child to several other arcades before catching a train from Bognor to Barnham.

It is alleged the pair walked up to four miles through the countryside until they reached a secluded copse by a stream, near Lidsey, where the boy was sexually assaulted.

The boy told officers the man told him he had a knife and had threatened to kill him.

Valentine is charged with kidnap, two offences of child abduction, two offences of indecent assault plus an offence of indecency with a child. He has denied all charges.

The trial continues.