A PRISON governor was "shy and rather naive" at the time he is alleged to have sexually assaulted two schoolboys more than 25 years ago, a court was told.

James Donaldson, who is currently governor of HMP Garth, near Leyland, has pleaded not guilty to 10 charges - five against each of two boys.

The offences, six of indecent assault and four of attempting to commit another serious sexual offence, are alleged to have happened in the late 1970s when the boys were aged between eight and 14 and Donaldson, who is now 39, was himself aged only 14-16.

Carlisle Crown Court was told that Donaldson, now of Catterall, near Preston, committed the offences in a barn on his family farm in the Lake District, where one of the boys used to go picking blueberries and in the boys' home in Penrith.

David Pickup QC, defending, told the court that as a child Donaldson had been " bit different" from one of the boys he is alleged to have assaulted, who was "undisciplined and a bit of a handful."

Under questioning, one of the alleged victims accepted that, when he first went for psychological counselling in 1990, he would have pinned the blame for his problems on others.

Richard Hunt, prosecuting, said that, while Donaldson molested the boys before he was 14, the charges he faced started on the day after his 14th birthday in 1978.

(Proceeding)