An IT technician accused of asking two eight-year-old boys if he could drink their urine has admitted to having a sexual interest in young children. 

Calum O’Reilly Timms is standing trial after he also allegedly asked one of the boys if he could touch their penis at a summer camp hosted at Edgbarrow School in August 2021. 

The 25-year-old, of North Street, Martock, Somerset, denies the allegations levelled against him. 

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Taking to the witness box today (August 10), O’Reilly Simms first fielded questions from defence barrister Claire Evans. 

He started by telling the jury he looked at indecent images of children ‘about a month before’ he was arrested, on August 6, 2021, the day after the alleged incidents.

‘I was in a very dark place in my life. I had moved in on my own and I was very lonely and I do regret looking at them’, he explained.

O’Reilly Timms accepted they were illegal and accepted lying to police about viewing the images when questioned in interview. 

He said he pleaded guilty to viewing indecent images because he was taking ‘responsibility for his actions’, but was not pleading guilty to the other charges as he was ‘not the person who did this.’

‘The only thing I can say to each and every one of you [the jury] is I know that I did not do this. Although I was looking at something that was related to this, I did not do that. I will not take responsibility for something I did not do.’

He denied asking if he could drink the first boy’s urine or touch his penis, and also said he did not follow the second boy into the bathroom or ask to drink his urine. 

In his second police interview, O’Reilly Timms said police should investigate contractors working at Edgbarrow completing refurbishments in relation to their enquiries.

Asked why he suggested this, the defendant said he felt like this line of investigation was not being looked into.

‘I felt I was being targeted and I was made the prime suspect from the get-go’, O’Reilly Timms said. 

His arrest took place in his office three hours after police attended Edgbarrow School, something O’Reilly Timms claimed to be ‘incredibly slow’ and carried out on little evidence. 

Prosecutor Lisa Goddard took her turn to ask questions of O’Reilly Timms. 

She suggested O’Reilly Timms was lying about his claim he did not ask the children to drink their urine, something he refuted. 

Turning to the indecent images O’Reilly Timms viewed, Ms Goddard asked the defendant if he had a sexual interest in young children when he downloaded the media. 

‘At the time, yes’, O’Reilly Timms responded.

He also admitted to having a sexual interest in urination after Ms Goddard told the jury he watched a video of a man urinating on a child’s face. 

‘You were interested in drinking urine, weren’t you?’, Ms Goddard asked.

‘No’, O’Reilly Timms replied, before admitting he was sexually interested in a video of a man urinating on a child’s face. 

The defendant also volunteered that he was sexually interested in defecation, too. 

Ms Goddard said O’Reilly Timms’s sexual interest in children ‘tipped over’ when children returned to the school at the summer camp, and therefore he decided he would ‘try his luck’ by approaching them.

He said the prosecutor was ‘wrong’ in her assessment.

The defendant also denied putting a plastic cup in the urinal of the student bathroom after Ms Goddard suggested he did so in order to catch some of the children’s urine so he could drink it later. 

The prosecutor said O’Reilly Timms was ‘aware of the pattern’ of the toilet trips of the children attending the summer camp, and he positioned himself in the corridor waiting for a child so he could approach them in the bathroom.

O’Reilly Timms denied all of these allegations. 

The trial continues.