A PAEDOPHILE doctor drugged an eight-year-old and told him he would be a star if he abused a girl on film, a court has heard.

A jury at Lewes Crown Court in Hove heard how former police medical examiner Robert C Wells, 69, had drugged the boy before driving him to a disused industrial area somewhere in Brighton.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons and is now aged 31, said he went along with the family friend who he thought was a policeman.

The jury heard about Wells's string of convictions for sexual offences against children.

"I asked him if it was police work because I knew he was a police doctor," the boy said.

"I knew something wasn't right, but I didn't know what it was but I thought it would be alright because he was a policeman."

White-haired Wells, wearing a blue checked shirt, walked out of the dock for a comfort break as the court heard he refused to meet Sussex Police detectives who tried to interview him in prison after fresh allegations were made in 2016.

Jennifer Knight QC for the Crown told the court Wells qualified as a doctor in the 1970s and worked as a GP in Caerleon, South Wales for ten years before moving to private practice in Brighton in 1990.

"He was also a forensic medical examiner, a police doctor, for Hampshire constabulary," Ms Knight said.

The boy and his mother moved to Scotland soon after starting primary school.

He visited Hove during the half term break in the late 1990s for a birthday party.

Ms Knight said: "Wells said he didn't look well and gave him a pill.

"He reassured him he was a doctor and he needed it.

"He said he had some work to do and took him away from the party.

"They arrived at what looked like an industrial area.

"He was taken upstairs into a large room.

"They were joined by another man who he didn't know."

There was a hospital-style bed with a bright light shining on it, Ms Knight said.

The boy was then told to do sexual things to a seemingly unconscious 8-year-old girl.

He was told that if he did it, he would become a star, the court heard.

The boy said another man in the room was operating the camera.

"He remembers waking up in a different room in a bed, possibly in a flat.

"He felt confused and anxious," Ms Knight said.

The boy found the events impossible to forget and went to police in January 2016.

The jury was told while Wells was a GP in Wales he indecently assaulted three of his patients.

He assaulted another teenage girl in November 1998, telling them all he was giving them was a medical examination.

Wells moved to Brighton in 2000.

In Feb 2003, he was arrested after filming himself sexually abusing two young girls after drugging them at his flat in Southampton.

He was jailed for 15 years at Winchester Crown Court in 2004.

After being released in 2015, he was arrested again when he failed to keep to the conditions of his licence.

He was jailed again for another seven years following another trial in Cardiff.

A cold case review of his case led to the discovery of new abuse videos on his computers and he has been convicted of multiple offences of indecent assault, rape and filming of a girls and her sisters who he befriended in Brighton

Wells refused to meet police when they went to interview him in prison.

In February last year he was charged by post after again refusing to meet with detectives.

Robert C Wells denies two counts of indecency with a child and attempting to take an indecent image of a child with another unknown male between September and November 1998.

The trial at Hove Crown Court continues.