The talk, the language was more involved with sex than I have experienced before."Two 10-year-old boys are accused of raping a pupil at the school when she was nine. All four deny the charges.The prosecution case is that five boys dragged the girl into lavatories at their school, forcibly stripped her and then fondled her before three of them took it in turns to rape her as the others looked on and laughed.A third boy alleged to have raped her could not be prosecuted as he was nine at the time and under the age of criminal responsibility.The headteacher said the first she knew about the alleged incident was when she received a note from the girl's mother.She agreed with Mr Kay that the note made no allegation concerning rape: "To my recollection it was an allegation of a threat that her clothes would be removed."When she spoke to the child about what had allegedly happened the previous day she said a group of boys "were trying to take her clothes off".Mr Kay: "And that she had been touched down there, meaning her genitals?"She replied: "That's correct."Mr Kay: "And that was the extent of these allegations made by her then?"Again the witness agreed.Mr Kay, representing one of the 10-year-olds accused of rape, asked the headteacher about the account that boy had given her in her office.He had told her they had asked the girl to come into the boys' toilet, that she took off her knickers and he took off his trousers.During the interview, the boy had not given the impression that he was unduly concerned and it was not until she told him it was serious that he started to get upset.She added: "In the time I have known him he has rarely given the impression of realising that what he has done is serious."Questioned by Mr Robin Grey QC, for the second boy accused of rape, the headteacher said that by the time the police arrived this boy was crying uncontrollably.The headteacher said that when she spoke to the girl at the centre of the case she was subdued, her speech was disjointed and there were moments of silence.The hearing continues today.. They are also accused with two other boys, aged 10 and 11, of indecently assaulting her. She made the comment during the trial of four boys who allegedly participated in a sex attack on the girl in the boys' lavatories at their London school last May. The witness, who was headteacher at the time of the alleged incident but is no longer at the school, was questioned by defence counsel Steven Kay QC about the level of sex talk among pupils.She told the jury and judge, Mrs Justice Bracewell, of incidents of name- calling involving sex, of girls being teased as "lesbians" and the word "sex" being written in school books.Mr Kay asked her: "Had you come across this mentioning of sex at this age level ever before within your experience?"She replied: "Not to the extent that I did at this school ...

The headteacher of a primary school where a 10-year-old girl was allegedly raped and indecently assaulted told the Old Bailey yesterday that pupils there talked about sex more than she had ever experienced in 17 years in the teaching profession. When Mr Gibbons asked: "The only thing you were intent on in that house was killing Mrs Fidler, was it not?", he replied: "Absolutely not.". Mr Farrant said he and Mrs Hoskins, who was separated from her husband, had a bath and they were drying themselves when they had a tiff. Mr Farrant has told the court that after her death he drove her car to Ashford, Kent, where he handed it to a friend and caught a ferry to Belgium. He denies the murder of Mrs Hoskins, 45, who was found by her daughter in the loft of their home at Portsmouth in February, 1996.He denied there had been a struggle with Mrs Hoskins.

A man accused of the murder of a mother of three yesterday said he ran from the scene of her death because he was scared. Victor Farrant, 48, told Winchester Crown Court that accountant Glenda Hoskins died accidentally when she fell back into the bath at her home after they had had a tiff. Mr Justice Butterfield said: "What I want to know is, if it was an accident, why you didn't seek help for her." Mr Farrant replied: "I was scared, I was nervous, I was worried." Jeremy Gibbons, QC, prosecuting, said: "This was a pre-planned murder, Mr Farrant." Mr Farrant replied: "It was an accident." He denied holding Mrs Hoskins under the water. How can we help you, Richard? How can we help you personally."Even if he had used those words, he did not see how they could be interpreted in any sinister way, he told Mr Justice Morland and the jury.. Mr Snowden, under cross-examination in the High Court by George Carman QC, told a libel jury: "I can't tell you that I don't sweat, but ... I am not a big sweater." Mr Snowden denied allegations that he tried to bribe Mr Branson into dropping Virgin's "all profits to charity" bid.

The suggestion was "incomprehensible", he said.And he denied that he had feared "the glittering prize" of the UK lottery franchise would slip away from him because the Government might opt for the Virgin proposal rather than the Camelot-GTech scheme.Mr Branson is suing GTech and Mr Snowden for libel over claims that he made the bribery allegation when he knew there was insufficient evidence to support it. In a cross-action, Mr Snowden is suing Mr Branson for making the allegation on a BBC Panorama programme in December 1995.The case centres on what was said over lunch at the Virgin boss's home in north London, in September 1993.Mr Snowden denied saying to Mr Branson: "There is always a bottom line. Mr Steiger said: "Things were said by Allen which demonstrated that he must have been involved."The trial resumes today.. Guy Snowden, chief of the lottery computer company GTech, yesterday rejected suggestions that he broke out in a visible sweat during lunch with Richard Branson because he realised that in trying to bribe the Virgin boss he had "made a wrong approach to the wrong man". Shortly afterwards a witness described hearing a dull bang that could have been the fatal shot.Allen was arrested 16 days later and the cell he was sharing with another prisoner was bugged. A man was seen with him as he unlocked the doors."Something occurred in the office prompting him to be killed in a fashion of the most brutal execution," said Mr Steiger.