A FORMER South Shore woman has been found not guilty at Preston Crown Court this week of the manslaughter of a 13-year-old girl.

A jury cleared Sally Corkhill, a self-confessed white witch, of the killing of Melissa Strickson at Corkhill's flat in Sudell Road, Darwen, last October.

The jury deliberated for just one-and-a-half-hours.

Melissa, of Tythebarn Street, Darwen, died after taking up to 100 tablets of co-proxamol which had been prescribed to Corkhill, 41.

Corkhill, who lived on Lytham Road, South Shore, until a few months before the incident, pleaded guilty to four charges of child abduction and two of supplying a controlled drug to two of the three other girls who were in the house with Melissa.

She will be sentenced in three weeks' time along with lover Lee Harrison, 31, of the same address, who has already admitted four charges of child abduction. The pair are being held in custody until their next appearance in court.

Melissa's parents, who have revealed how she had a history of running away from home, were said to be unhappy with the verdict and concerned that the authorities seemed powerless to address the behaviour which led her to stay with Corkhill and Harrison.

The court heard how a fear of being taken into care had prompted the teenager to leave home.

A letter from Melissa to her parents, written while she was at Sudell Road, said: "I am sorry to put you through this, but the possibility of going into care is very close. We are safe and I just want to say I love you and dad very much. I will keep in touch."

Det Chief Insp Neil Smith of Blackburn Police said he thought the police had adequate powers when a child ran away from home. He said parents had a responsibility as well as the police and social services and that they had returned Melissa home on the 27 previous times she had gone missing.

Speaking after her daughter's death, Melissa's mother Sue Strickson, 35, said police and social services needed stronger powers to help children with a history of running away without taking them into care. She said: "This had been going on for 18 months before Melissa died -- she had been going into different people's houses."

It was a wet, cold and windy night on Monday, October 8, when the four girls turned up at Sally Corkhill's flat in Darwen. The downstairs flat, one of three in the converted terrace house, was rented by Corkhill who lived there along with her lover Lee Harrison.

Both self-confessed alcoholics, the pair had moved to East Lancashire from Blackpool about 18 months before in a bid to get themselves back on the straight and narrow.

Unemployed Corkhill, 41, had been disabled after an accident in 1998 which left her with an injured spine and nerve damage which meant she walked with difficulty and then always with crutches.

She was prescribed a variety of drugs following her back injury, including the painkillers co-proxamol and valium, which she kept in the flat. There was often up to a month's supply stashed away, usually kept in a bedside cabinet, but never locked away in a medicine cabinet.

Corkhill knew the group of girls who called at the flat but only by sight. She did not know any of their surnames or where they lived, other than that they were local to Darwen.

They were all regular truants from school and some of them had been seen by Corkhill in the streets around Darwen.