Black Country bus driver with spanking fetish denies underage sex

Ian Prestleton, aged 54, of High Haddon Road, Cradley Heath, is one of 12 men on trial at Warwick Crown Court accused of various sexual offences against the boy – who was allegedly pimped out after running away from a children's home.

Prestleton has pleaded not guilty to arranging or facilitating child prostitution, raping the boy, engaging in sexual activity with him and causing or inciting him to engage in sexual activity.

His involvement with the boy, who is said to have been pimped out first by 39-year-old Stephen Kelly, of Elm Road, Bourneville, Birmingham, and then by Tahir Hussain, 34, took place in 2010.

The jury has heard that at that time the 15-year-old boy was working as a rent boy in the Kent Street gay red light area of Birmingham.

He was also allegedly being pimped out by Hussain, of St Joseph's Road, Ward End, Birmingham. Prestleton, giving evidence in the eighth week of the trial, said he started going to Kent Street in about 1999 when 'it was more of a cruising area than a prostitute area'.

He told the court he used to go there in his car and had picked people up 'on quite a few occasions.' But asked whether he picked up very young people, he replied: "Not really. I tend to go for people who are 21, that sort of age."

Prestleton explained that when he had picked someone up he would take them back to his home for sexual activity.

He admitted a 'fetish' for over-the-knee spanking using a leather strap, with 'no pain involved'.

In his evidence earlier in the trial the boy said that on a day in June, Prestleton met him in Kent Street and took him to a McDonalds before stopping off to buy a cigar and then going back to Prestleton's home where they engaged in sexual acts.

Prestleton, who told the jury he does not smoke, said that was 'not true'.

The trial continues.