A COLLEGE caretaker stood accused yesterday of drugging children with chloroform and raping them while they were unconscious.

Two alleged victims of John James Sanderson told police that he sexually abused them for years, until they were adults.

The abuse began when they were boys and Mr Sanderson took them to the teaching centre in Darlington at night, when it was deserted, and gave them liquid-soaked rags to sniff, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said that they woke up half-naked and alone. The sex assaults on one boy began when he was ten and lasted until he was 21 and married with a baby.

A third boy was given chloroform to sniff but he became violently sick and Mr Sanderson drove him home, he added.

The assaults which took place while Mr Sanderson was caretaker, from 1994 to 1996, led to one boy making several suicide attempts and self harm, said Mr Dodds.

Mr Sanderson showed them pornographic videos and magazines and also gave them cash and presents, he added.

The police received complaints in July last year after the young father told his wife. Mr Sanderson, who is married, was arrested but denied everything, saying the pair had a grudge against him.

Mr Sanderson, 35, formerly of Darlington, and now of Dunholme Road, Newcastle, denies four charges of rape, three of a serious sexual assault, indecency with a child and indecent assault between February 1990 and May last year.

Mr Dodds told the jury: "The defendant was a caretaker at a teaching centre in Darlington from June 1994 to March 1996. He was a keyholder and both boys were taken there.

"Once inside at night the boys were given rags to sniff, which the Crown maintains were soaked in chloroform, and sometimes made them black out.

"One boy remembers waking up alone in a room with his trousers down. He later found the other boy unconscious on the floor of a room."

He said that Mr Sanderson, who later left the college and became a warehouseman at an engineering company, began carrying chloroform in a small bottle. He gave it to the boys at other locations and became violent to one boy, who attempted suicide several times, the court heard.

Mr Dodds added: "There were regular visits to the teaching centre where both were abused. The defendant gave them chloroform to inhale."

When the boy was 15, Mr Sanderson took him out in his white Ford Capri and they went to a disused cattle shed where Sanderson showed him pornographic magazines before sexually abusing him, the court was told.

The other boy was a teenager living with his girlfriend and their baby when Mr Sanderson was still sexually abusing him while she was out of the house, said Mr Dodds.

He added that Mr Sanderson assaulted the young mother and there was an outburst by the lad, who disclosed what had happened to him. The teenager developed a drink problem and also began self harm.

The two alleged victims were medically examined last year. Dr Victoria Evans told the court that the results did not support or disprove their claims because of the passage of time. The case continues.