FOLK singer Roy Harper sexually abused a young girl who visited his Herefordshire farm in the mid-1970s, a jury has been told.

Harper is alleged to have tried to have sex with the girl and also incited her to commit acts of gross indecency when he lived at the address in Marden.

Anthony Potter, prosecuting, at Worcester Crown Court, told the jury the girl liked to visit the house because she was made to feel welcome by Harper and his partner at the time and it was “exciting”.”

There were often famous people there who were friends of the singer and in a video interview, she said she recalled singer Robert Plant visiting, though not at the same time as any of the allegations.

Harper, aged 73, who now lives in Rossmore, near Clonakilty, Co Cork, Republic of Ireland, denies three charges of indecent assault, four of indecency with a child and two of sexual intercourse with a girl under 13 on various dates between August 31, 1975 and January 1, 1977. The alleged offences all involve the same girl who was then aged 11 or 12.

He also denies a further charge of indecent assault between May 23 1980 and January 1, 1981, involving a 16-year-old girl.

Mr Potter said Harper was a musician of undoubted musical ability and enjoyed a degree of fame as a result in the 1970s. Harper told police that in the seventies he was “on top of the world and really making waves in the music industry” but by the 1980s, he was struggling financially. However, the trial was to do with a “less attractive” aspect of his personality, Mr Potter said.

On the first occasion the girl was abused, he told the jury, she had been helping Harper with his sheep in a one of the barn. She said she did not understand what was happening to her but she instinctively knew it was wrong. She let him because it made her feel special. She could remember he was slightly bald on top and his fingers had gone blue because of a blood condition.

Harper also abused her in the main room and the bedroom of the 15th century black-and-white farmhouse, she claims, and on one occasion sexually assaulted her while she was sitting on his lap at the kitchen table as he played a game of Mah Jongg with a visiting American musician. He also abused her in a field under apple trees where he went to write songs, she claims.

She said she had gone to see Harper in concert when she was 18 or 19 but had not seen him since then.

She had mentioned the assaults to others but had not made an official complaint until she saw the publicity surrounding the Jimmy Savile investigation and it had all been brought back to her.

Mr Potter said the second girl was indecently assaulted at a house in Hereford when Harper went to visit her in 1980.

The trial continues.