THE victim of an alleged child abuser described her ordeal as black magic, a court heard.

In a letter to Gordon Redmond, on trial for 22 charges of indecent assault on girls as young as 10, one of the alleged victims described the impact of the alleged abuse.

She said: "To a child, it felt like you asked me to rip a live rabbit in half and then eat it. It felt like black magic.

"By eleven years of age I was filled with guilt, shame and confusion . . . I thought I was the only person in the world who was capable of such a wicked thing."

Redmond is on trial at Lewes Crown Court over sexual abuse charges on girls as young as 10.

Summing up in the case had to be adjourned yesterday after a juror was taken ill with a migraine.

The offences are alleged to have begun in the late 1960s in the Brighton area, before Mr Redmond moved to Carmarthenshire in 1984.

Redmond, who now lives at Excelsior House, Princess Way, Swansea, denies the 22 charges, which include five charges of rape.

Prosecutor Gillian Etherton said Redmond groomed his victims into believing the sexual contact was normal or somehow their fault.

Miss Etherton said, having heard all the evidence, it was now the jury's duty to put it all together and look at the picture it created.

"A criminal trial is a bit like a jigsaw. It is rare that the jury has all the pieces, but now you should be able to stand back and see the picture of what is going on," she said.

Bernard Richmond QC, defending Redmond, emphasised that the jury also needed to consider the defence's role in the creation of the jigsaw.

He said: "The prosecution can say you can't make the case until you can see the jigsaw. As the defence, we can take important pieces of that jigsaw and throw them away. And what are those pieces? They are reasonable doubt, and if there is reasonable doubt then you cannot convict."

Mr Richmond said it was also crucial to avoid the nature of the charges clouding opinions.

Mr Richmond told the jury that flaws in Redmond's character that had been highlighted during the trial — including his admission to two charges of having consensual intercourse with a 14-year-old – cannot colour their deliberations.

"Judging him — whether you like him or not — is a luxury you gave up when you took your oaths as jurors."

Proceedings were adjourned and the defence is scheduled to finish summing up today.