A HEYSHAM teenager has been cleared by a court of sexually assaulting an 18 year old girl in a transit van - but she was raped in the vehicle by another 16-year-old youth, a jury was told. Adam Burke, 18, of McDonald Road, Heysham, was alleged to have touched the girl while he gave her and a friend a lift. But at the end of the prosecution case against him at Preston Crown Court, the jury acquitted him of a charge of indecent assault on the direction of Judge Peter Smith. He was discharged from the dock.

Still on trial is the 16-year-old boy from Morecambe, who denies raping the 18-year-old girl and indecently assaulting her 16-year-old friend during the same incident.

The Crown allege that the two girls accepted a lift from Mr Burke and the 16-year-old defendant when they visited Morecambe for a night out in September last year.

It is claimed the defendant sexually assaulted the younger girl, and then raped the 18-year-old on a mattress in the back of the van.

Giving evidence, the 16-year-old boy told the jury that the girl had consented to sex with him and he had not raped her. In the witness box, he said: "Everything I did was with her consent. I did not force her, she led the way." He denied indecently assaulting the other girl. On the previous day (Tuesday) Miss Louise Blackwell, prosecuting told the jury that the girls had asked the occupants of the white transit van for directions to nightclubs in Morecambe. They were offered a lift which they accepted, she said. Miss Blackwell told the jury that the 16-year-old boy, who can not be named for legal reasons: "He laid her back on a mattress, held her hands over her head and raped her."

Shortly afterwards the girls then went to the police station and made their complaints. The 16-year-old attending Morecambe station voluntarily some days later and was arrested.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.