A Pembroke Dock man told police he was “perplexed and stunned” to be accused of sexually abusing five different girls.

Stephen Bladen, a self employed painter and decorator, told Det Con Paul James that a girl who complained of being abused at his home had never even been there.

Bladen, recently of Sycamore Street and once of School Road, Pembroke Dock, denies almost 30 charges of assault, including rapes, and of possessing indecent images of children.

A jury at Swansea crown court heard on Friday what Bladen told police during several interviews that followed his initial arrest.

He said he could not understand why one of the girls had told police she had been sexually assaulted although, he suggested, it could be true but that she was now identifying the wrong man.

“I have done absolutely nothing at all. It never, never happened,” he said.

After experts had examined a computer and a hard drive found at Bladen’s home he was re-interviewed.

He said he had “absolutely no knowledge” about 89 indecent images found on an Acer machine, 19 of which fell into the most serious category.

Bladen said he had bought the computer second hand at Carew market and had never seen the images.

The trial continues.