A female teacher accused of tying a boy to her bed and blindfolding him before a sex act 'is choosing not to remember him', a court has heard.

Deborah Franklin, 65, is standing trial charged with eight counts of gross indecency against the boy in the 1990s while he was aged between nine and 12 - when she was a teacher at a preparatory school in Hertfordshire.

She allegedly blindfolded and strapped the boy to her marital bed for hours so she could sexually tickle him with a feather during a years-long campaign of abuse.