Mark Page: Jury to consider its verdicts in child sex trial

Jurors are expected to retire to consider their verdicts in the morning after a judge finished summing up the evidence.

Mark Page denies paying young children for sex after a series of sexually explicit messages were recovered from his Skype account.

The 63-year-old told Teesside Crown Court that this account, his Western Union payment account, and his mobile phone had been hacked in a bid to frame him.

The veteran broadcaster told jurors how he lost his job with Middlesbrough Football Club as soon as they were made aware of the charges he was facing following his arrest in January 2020.

Read more: Mark Page's barrister dismisses 'Jimmy Savile' reference​

The jury had heard how Page was in the Philippines in October 2016 and sent a number of text messages arranging to meet up with the young girl for sex.

In a series of explicit messages before his arrival and after he stayed at a hotel in the Makati area, Page is alleged to have asked the girl to arrange for him to have sex with a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy when he visited the Philippines.

The prosecution allege that Page made 164 money transfers to the Far East between 2011 and 2016 and these were to pay for sexual favours.

Page, of Snowdrop Close, Stockton, denies five charges of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence between August 2016, and April 2019.

Judge Paul Watson QC, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, said he will send the jury out at 10am tomorrow morning (Wednesday, March 9).

The trial continues.

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