The trial of a Police officer accused of sexually assaulting three young boys left in his care continued yesterday with one of the alleged victims telling a Queen's Counsel that instructions from the defendant were lies.

The officer, who cannot be named for legal reasons, faces an array of sexual assault charges involving the three young boys.

The second alleged victim took the stand on Wednesday. Now 14, he told the court of his anger and pain after he was allegedly abused by the officer while he was ten years old.

Finishing his testimony yesterday, the boy, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court he did not tell anyone what happened because he was scared. When asked why he was scared, he did not answer.

After he was excused, the boy's mother took the stand, telling the court how she had trusted the officer, who used to babysit her son while she was at work.

The mother told how she left her son in the officer's care for nearly a week after Boxing Day, 2001, while she had to work. They did not speak for that time.

The next time she saw her son was on New Year's Day, 2002. On January 2, her son went to school as normal, but when he came home, showed his mother marks on his behind which she said resembled a handprint and a tear around the anal area. She promptly took him to the hospital to be examined. Photos of the marks on her son's behind were admitted into evidence and shown to the court.

Defence counsel John Perry QC pointed out the mother had made no reference to a handprint until more than a month after she took her son to hospital, though she did make reference to marks on his behind.

Then the third alleged victim took the stand.

Now 18, the boy said he was nine and ten years old when the incidents occurred with the Police officer. His mother, who took the stand later, said he was ten at the time.

The officer would come and babysit the boy after school while his mother was at work. "I used to sit on his lap and do my homework." The officer would then rub him on the leg or the head when he got things right.

The officer allegedly asked the boy "if I could keep my mouth shut", promising gifts in return for his silence. When Senior Crown counsel Juan Wolffe asked if the officer was getting something in return, the boy replied: "I guess it was getting in my pants."

He recounted one episode where the officer allegedly told him to go into his mother's room and remove his clothes, then lie down on the bed stomach down. "He was asking where the lotion was and all that."

The boy then gave details of the officer sexually assaulting him.

"I didn't feel right," he said.

The same event occurred several times at the boy's home while his mother was out, he said, and once when the boy visited the officer at his own home. They went swimming in the pool, where the officer allegedly asked if he could "get in my pants" again, and later went to the officer's room.

That time, the boy said, the officer sodomised him. "That's when I started crying and told him to stop ... He used to call me 'honey', 'son'. 'Son, it's okay, I'm not going to hurt you.'"

When the boy threatened to tell his mother what was happening, "he hopped off automatic".

The boy also recounted gifts the officer had allegedly given him in return for his silence: a Nintendo 64, a Sony Playstation, and a gold chain with a gold cross with the boy's name and the date, 1996, inscribed on it.

In a heated cross-examination, Mr. Perry pointed out the boy said in a Police statement that he had only been to the officer's house once, while in court he said it was three times.

"So you are prepared to tell lies?" Mr. Perry asked.

"It wasn't a lie, I couldn't remember," the boy replied.

When Mr. Perry asked if he had ever used drugs or been accused of shoplifting, the boy angrily replied he had not.

"So you have been a perfect little boy then," Mr. Perry said.

"No, I haven't been a perfect little boy," the alleged victim replied. He admitted he had been to the Sunshine League and remanded at the Co-Ed facility.

The boy's mother had asked if the officer was abusing him, Mr. Perry said, and at the time the boy told her he was not. When the alleged victim agreed that was correct, Mr. Perry, assisted by counsel Leo Mills, said: "So you are admitting you are a liar then?"

"No," the boy replied angrily, "he told me to keep my mouth shut."

Though the boy maintained he had met the officer through his uncle, Mr. Perry suggested the pair met when the officer was called to the house after the boy went missing one day.

"That's wrong, I don't know what you're talking about ... What type of craziness is that?" the boy replied.

And, when Mr. Perry suggested the officer had never sexually assaulted the boy in his mother's bedroom because the officer's sister was always home while he was helping him with his homework, the boy replied: "That is a lie".

The boy's mother could not recall where the family met the officer, but said she trusted him, and thought her son needed someone like the officer in his life.

She also revealed that she and the defendant had been intimate one night, though she maintained it was not a relationship, and that it happened only once.

The officer had given the entire family presents for Christmas, 1996, she said, and she contradicted her son's testimony that the officer gave him a Nintendo 64, saying that came from someone else.

She denied ever calling the Police because her son was missing, and said her daughter was sometimes home while the officer was helping her son with his homework, but not always.

She asked her son if the officer had done anything to him after she noticed her son was "acting strange", she said.

The trial continues tomorrow morning before Assistant Justice Carlisle Greaves.