A priest accused of sexually abusing young boys has denied links with a paedophile group which lobbied for the lowering of the age of consent.

Father Michael Ingram told a jury he had never supported any campaign to change the law to make it legal for adults to have sex with children.

Ingram is accused of sex offences against six boys, aged between nine and 13, when he was a Catholic priest at Leicester's Holy Cross Priory during the 1970s.

The 68-year-old told Leicester Crown Court he had worked all his life to provide children with better protection from abuse.

He denied a claim by Graham Buchanan, prosecuting, that he was "a hypocrite, a charlatan and a serial abuser of young children".

Ingram, a child psychologist and former social worker, claimed he left the priesthood because of the hypocrisy of the Catholic church's laws.

He told the jury he opposed rules which meant that any Catholic who accused a priest of child abuse was himself ex-communicated.

Ingram said he had researched child abuse and campaigned for better treatment of victims by the authorities to encourage more prosecutions.

Mr Buchanan, referring to national newspaper reports from the 1970s, said Ingram had outraged the church with his controversial views on paedophilia. Ingram told the court he was misquoted.

Ingram, of Norwich Street, in Cambridge, denies sexually assaulting altar servers, members of a church youth club and boys referred to him by social services.

He allegedly abused youngsters at his church and on charity-funded holidays arranged for boys from deprived families.

The trial continues.

This story was first published in the Leicester Mercury