A doctor drugged a child at a birthday party and forced him to abuse a girl as young as five as she was tied to a bed, a court was told.
Dr Robert Cameron Wells, 69, a former GP (general practitioner), gave the boy a “white tablet”, telling him that he could trust him because he was a doctor.
Robert Wells, formerly of Hangleton Road, Hove, then drove the eight-year-old boy to a building on an industrial site.
Once there, he was alleged to have taken him into a large room where a young girl was tied to a bed and unconscious.
The boy also noticed a large television-style camera in the corner of the room which was being operated by a second man, a jury was told at Hove Crown Court.
Wells approached the boy and handed him what looked like a small hammer with rounded ends and ribs on it.
Wells told him to abuse the girl but he was reluctant so the doctor told him that he was like an actor in a film and would be the star.
The boy then abused the girl while the other man stood behind the camera filming what happened.
Today (Tuesday 20 July) Wells went on trial at Hove Crown Court charged with two counts of indecent assault and taking or trying to take indecent pictures of a child.
The court was told that the incident happened in 1998 when the eight-year-old boy was at a friend’s birthday party in Hove.
The jury heard that Wells approached the boy and told him that he didn’t look well and had to take a white tablet, reassuring that him he was a doctor and the boy could trust him.
In a police interview played to the jury, the alleged victim, who is now 31, said: “I took the tablet and he said, I’ve got to go and do some work now.”
He said that he remembered getting into Wells’s Jeep and being driven for “some considerable time” while he rested his head on the window.
They came to an industrial area where they were joined by another man and all three walked into a building.
Jennifer Knight, prosecuting, said: “He recalls going into a room with a hospital-style bed in the middle with a bright light shining on it.
“Lying on the bed was a very young girl of somewhere between five and eight years old. She was naked and seemingly unconscious.
“He noticed a large camera, a television-type camera in the corner of the room. Robert Wells and the second man talked for a while, then the second man went and stood by the camera.”
The jury was also told that Wells pulled down his trousers very close to the boy’s face.
After being forced to abuse the unconscious girl, he said that he became confused and “foggy”.
The court heard that his next clear recollection was of waking in a bed in a different location, no longer in the industrial building.
He recalled that the room where he woke up was somewhere high up, possibly a flat. He felt confused and anxious and shouted out.
Wells then allegedly appeared and asked him what happened, telling him that he hadn’t been well and had been asleep.
The boy was so confused he didn’t know what to say so he just went along with it and he was delivered back to his father.
However, the boy, who lived with his mother, never forgot the incident and began to speak to friends about the ordeal.
In 2016 he eventually called the police and Wells was arrested and charged with the offences.
The jury was told that Wells qualified as a doctor in the 1970s and became a GP in 1979, working in a practice in Caerleon in Gwent, South Wales, until 1988.
He then worked for an on-call service called Healthcare in East Sussex, Hampshire and Coventry.
From 1990 he combined this with private practice in Brighton while also working as a forensic medical examiner for Hampshire Police.
The jury was told that Wells had previous convictions for abusing three girls. He was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
He was released in 2014 but returned to prison the following year for breaching the terms of his licence.
Shortly afterwards a further complaint led to him being convicted of indecent assault and sentenced to seven years behind bars. He was serving that sentence until October 2020.
The trial continues.
I was at medical school with him, you think you know someone, what a piece of s###