A MAN described how, when he was a schoolboy, he was persuaded to have sex with a part-time Dyfed-Powys police officer.

In a video-recorded interview he gave details of a series of offences allegedly committed against him by Gareth Mathias.

The interview was played yesterdayat the Swansea Crown Court trial of 28-year-old Mathias, of Fron Terrace, Llanelli.

The complainant, now in his early 20s, was a young secondary school pupil when Mathias allegedly had a sexual relationship with him in the late 1990s.

Mathias, who was a special constable at the time, had got to know the boy while working as a civilian instructor with the Sea Cadets.

He denies eight charges of buggery and two of indecent assault.

Opening the Crown case on Monday, prosecutor Patrick Griffiths claimed Mathias had set out to "groom" the boy.

According to the prosecution, Mathias first sexually assaulted the boy after going to his tent at a military camp in the South of England.

On later occasions, other sexual acts allegedly took place in secluded areas of a country park.

The boy's "reward" for these, the jury heard, was to be allowed to drive Mathias's car in the country park.

He would sit on the defendant's lap, steering the car, while the defendant operated the foot controls.

On day two of the trial, the jury watched a video-recorded interview — made last year — in which the complainant described what Mathias allegedly did to him a decade ago. During the interview, he described going to a secluded part of the country park with Mathias at 8pm one evening.

The defendant had brought along some toy guns.

"We were running in between the trees — shooting each other and basically larking about," said the complainant.

Later, when they were in Mathias's car, the complainant asked if he could have a go at driving it.

Mathias agreed — but said the complainant would first have to go in the back seat of the car with him for five minutes.

Mathias then had sex with the complainant after telling him: "Do this for me and you can drive my car."

The complainant said in the video-recorded interview that the sex act in question was less painful than the one that had taken place at the military camp.

"It did not hurt so much and I thought it must be normal," said the complainant.

He described how he and Mathias went to the country park on a number of occasions.

"Every time we went down there we did the same thing," he said.

He said there had been "seven, eight, maybe nine times," when Mathias had performed sexual acts on him, or vice versa, at the park.

"Basically, it was just so I could drive his car," added the complainant in the interview.

The jury has heard that, when arrested last July, Mathias denied any wrongdoing.

The case continues.