A YORK ghost walk leader who denies offences involving a 15-year-old girl told a jury on Thursday that he was not sexually attracted to her.

Andrew Auster, 59 said when he used the word “desire” in a text message to the teenager it referred to a desire to be with her “not any sexual desire.”

He said talking to her made him feel good and euphoric but the affection he felt was like a father for a daughter “very strong parental mentoring type love for her.”

Auster of Main Street, Newton-upon Derwent, denies one charge of causing a child to engage in sexual activity and one of sexual activity with a child.

The prosecution alleges his actions were inappropriate grooming and claim he allowed her to put her hand on his crotch area and on another occasion touched and kissed her chest after she had removed her bra.

Auster told the jury at York Crown Court sitting in Leeds, that he had been running the Ghost Walk in the city for 20 years. “It is a guided walk which takes people round the supposed haunted places in York.”

He said it was an entertainment and “there is a lot of comedy in it.” Because of the character he portrays in costume and promoting the tour he is well known in the centre.

He and the girl had spoken together for the first time when he finished a walk one evening in August 2014 and denied anything sexual between them.

“Most of the people I entertain are tourists so they don’t often get the opportunity to know me.”

He found the teenager “supremely intelligent” and bubbly with a very high sense of humour. They talked on that first evening for about one and a half hours.

She spoke of her life and family. Auster said normally out of costume he was a very shy person. “But because of her openness I revealed a lot about my life. I was quite surprised how much I was telling her.”

He said they both felt it had been an incredible conversation and when she tapped him on the shoulder two days later he agreed to have another chat with her and found they were “ecstatically happy in each other’s company.”

He told the jury he considered when they continued to meet and chat that they had a “totally healthy friendship” and he found it ironic that anybody considered anything negative about it.

York Press:

“I was putting myself forward as a mentor who could help her.”

He had kissed her on the forehead after one meeting. “Anything sexual in the way you kissed her,” asked Jeremy Barton defending him. “No, not at all.” replied Auster He said their text messages contained lots of joking references and wordplay using crude terms were not intended to be sexual and she had laughed at them.

Mr Barton asked him: “Did you see anything wrong with these messages you were sending.”

“No,” he replied but he said he had found listening to them read out and “in the press a painful experience.”

“I feel embarrassed and humiliated that people have seen these and possibly taken them out of context. My only reason was to make her laugh, to make her happy. No other reason, they are just jokes.”

Mr Barton asked: “Did you think at the time it was appropriate, bearing in mind her age to send her messages with double-meaning jokes?”

Auster replied: “She was absolutely fine.” He said she was mature for her age.

Asked about a text saying “I need to examine every inch of you” he told the jury: “It was my metaphorical, spiritual way of reaching out to her, I am not talking about physical touch.”

He said he was shocked when the girl’s father spoke to him expressing concern about the relationship with his daughter.

Auster said he considered the friendship had been “good and wholesome” but when she was so upset about his being told to stop meeting “it absolutely dawned on me that she had a crush on me and I hold my hand up I was responsible for her confusion.”

The trial continues.