A former police officer from Bidford has indicated that he will be pleading not guilty to rape and a number of other sexual assaults on children more than 30 years ago.

Timothy Lively appeared before magistrates in Leamington to face a total of 19 sexual allegations in relation to ten boys and three girls.

The offences are all alleged to have taken place in Stratford in the 1970s and 1980s when Lively (58) of Old School Mead, Bidford-on-Avon, was a serving Warwickshire Police officer.

After asking Lively to confirm his address and date of birth, the magistrates’ legal advisor said that one of the charges alleges the rape of a girl under the age of 16.

She explained that that matter, which is said to have taken place between the late 1970s and the early 1980s, had to be dealt with in the crown court.

“All the other charges, and there are 19 charges in total, are ‘either way’ matters, and therefore could go to the crown court or remain here.”

But she told the magistrates both advocates in the case accepted they were ‘linked offences’ which should also be dealt with in the crown court.

The charges Lively faces include raping and indecently assaulting a girl when she was under the age of 16, and indecently assaulting another girl when she was over 16.

In relation to a third girl, he is accused of two charges of indecently assaulting her, one relating to when she was under 14 and one when she was under 16, as well as committing an act of gross indecency with her.

He is also charged with committing acts of intercourse with a boy when he was 15 in the early 1980s, and again when he was over 16, without his consent.

Lively further faces seven charges of indecently assaulting each of seven boys who were under 16 at the time, and four of indecently assaulting two of those boys and two others when they were 16 or over.

Asked whether there were any indications of the pleas Lively will enter, his solicitor said it would be ‘not guilty to everything.’

So the magistrates committed the case to the crown court for a plea and trial preparation hearing on October 27, and Lively was granted unconditional bail.