A 69-year-old North Wales man has gone on trial amid allegations that he sexually abused two young boys back in the 1970s - when he himself was in his mid-20s and working in child care.

It is alleged he abused one boy at an assessment centre in Wrexham where he was the deputy, and another at a flat in Colwyn Bay after playing a card game, strip jack naked.

Defendant Huw Meurig Jones, of Penybryn, Old Colwyn, has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of sexual abuse on the two complainants between June 1975 and October 1978.

They are now men in their 50s.

Prosecuting barrister Danny Moore told a jury at Mold Crown Court that Jones abused his position of trust.

He said the defendant worked with children, employed in various roles with various local councils in Wales.

Those roles brought him into contact with vulnerable children.

"The prosecution say that he went on to abuse the trust placed in him and sexually abused two children in his care," he said.

He said that Jones had been employed at Cheviot Hey Children's Home in Wrexham between 1972 and 1974 and then went to The Little Acton Assessment Centre between July 1972 and March 1976.

It was at that assessment centre that it was alleged that he abused one of the complainants.

The defendant was the deputy, was aged 25, lived on site and it was alleged that he abused one boy in a semi secure unit after he had absconded and then returned to the unit.

He thereafter was employed as a social worker by Clwyd County Council on an intermediate treatment programme and while there he came into contact with the second complainant, he said, who it was alleged was abused in the defendant's then flat in Colwyn Bay.

It was important, he told the jury, that they were not known to each other.

In 1991 North Wales Police began a major inquiry into both Clwyd and Gwynedd Children's Homes and the two complainants first made their allegations in 1992.

The prosecutor said that the allegations were not prosecuted at that stage and the jury was not concerned with the rights or wrongs of that decision.

He said that the issue for them, now in 2019, was whether they were sure the allegations were proved or not.

The North Wales Tribunal, chaired by Sir Ronald Waterhouse, was held between 1997 and 1998 and in 2013 the Government ordered a further investigation, named Operation Pallial, which was carried out by the National Crime Agency.

Following a review of earlier decisions Jones was charged, he explained.

It is alleged that the defendant fondled the first complainant at the Wrexham assessment centre and it is alleged that se. acts took place with the second complainant following card games.

Interviewed, Jones denied all the allegations.

Jones pleads not guilty to a total of 13 charges - four of gross indecency with a child, seven of indecent assault and two of a serious sexual assault.

The trial before Judge Niclas Parry is proceeding.