Former Warwickshire Police officer accused of sexually abusing teenagers cleared of six more charges

A former Stratford police sergeant accused of sexually abusing a number of teenagers has been cleared of six more of the allegations he has been facing at Warwick Crown Court.

Timothy Lively (60) of Old School Mead, Bidford-on-Avon, had denied a total of 26 charges dating from the mid-1970s to the summer of 1986 when some of the allegations were first made.

The alleged offences were said to have taken place in Stratford at a time when Lively, now a successful businessman, was a Warwickshire Police officer or, before then, a cadet.

He was accused of indecently assaulting eight boys, some of them at a children’s home where he was a volunteer, two while on camping trips and one at Stratford police station.

He was also said to have had sex with two of the boys, one of them at a boy’s club he was involved with running at the time.

The charges also include allegedly indecently assaulting three girls and raping one of them.

After a trial which has now lasted 13 weeks, Lively has already been cleared of two charges of indecent assault in relation to one boy in 1979 and one charge of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old boy on a camping trip in the early 1980s.

And on Friday, after the jury had been deliberating for a total of more than 50 hours over the course of nine days, they were asked whether they had reached any further verdicts.

The jury foreman then returned not guilty verdicts on six more of the charges.

Two of those related to alleged indecent assaults on a boy in the late 70s when he was aged 15 and 16 and one allegation that Lively had had sex with the boy when he was 16.

However he still faces two further indecent assault charges in relation to that complainant.

In addition the jury found Lively not guilty of two charges of indecently assaulting another boy, again aged 15 and 16, at Stratford police station, having already cleared him of indecently assaulted that boy on a camping trip.

He was also cleared of indecently assaulting a boy under the age of 16 at a children’s home in the early 80s.

A further allegation concerning that boy is among other charges the jury is still considering.

The jury has heard that a complaint was first made in 1986 by a man who alleges he was abused in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Although no charges resulted from that man’s original complaint, there was an internal tribunal which prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC said led to Lively being dismissed from the force in 1988.