A former ambulance chief accused of grooming a 15-year-old for sex has claimed it was the boy who made the first move.

Basildon Crown Court earlier heard how Anton van Dellen drove the boy to a secluded spot, locked the doors of his car and encouraged him to carry out a sex act after the pair flirted on social networking website Facebook.

Today a police interview, in which van Dellen insisted he had not been interested in sex with the alleged victim, was read to the jury.

He told officers he had spoken to the boy on Facebook and then later the boy "randomly said 'hi'" in an online chat.

"He said 'do you fancy meeting up?'" van Dellen said.

"I said 'no' because it wasn't right."

He later agreed to meet the boy: "I made it clear I wasn't meeting him for a sexual reason.

"It was just because it was Sunday, I had nothing to do and wanted to meet up for a chat.

"I was absolutely clear it was not a sexual meeting."

He said that after meeting the pair drove to a location suggested by the boy who then made advances towards him.

Van Dellen said he declined the advances so the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, performed a sex act on himself.

Asked why he drove for one-and-a-half hours from his London home to Benfleet, Essex, van Dellen said: "I used to drive to work in Wales, that took three and half hours, I'm somebody who enjoys driving."

Van Dellen, a qualified medical doctor and barrister, denies meeting a child aged under 16 after sexual grooming between May and June last year.

The 41-year-old, of Stamford Brook Avenue, Hammersmith, west London, served for two months as interim chief executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service until August 2006.

He had previously been deputy chief executive of Staffordshire Ambulance Service and was studying at the University of Cambridge at the time of the alleged offence.

Opening the case, prosecutor Cyrus Shroff told jurors that van Dellen had befriended the boy on Facebook about a week before the meeting.

"The boy did not hide the fact he was homosexual and he assumed the defendant was as well," he added.

"He did however make it plain that he was only 15."

Proceeding