TAXI drivers in Nelson are being asked to help police inquiries into a sex attack on two 13-year-old girls.

The terrified teenagers were assaulted in the back of a red and white cab taking them from Nelson to Burnley late on Sunday night.

They have told police in video interviews that they were driven on a country route before being indecently assaulted in the Duckpits area of Barden Lane, Burnley.

They were then dumped in the Whalley Street area of Daneshouse, Burnley, just after midnight on Monday.

They banged on the door of a nearby house after failing to get help from two young men walking along the street.

Pendle Council's taxi liaison officer is helping police in discussion with local taxi men.

The offender is Asian, aged about 40, short, broad, balding and with a mole on his left cheek.

He spoke in broken English.

The girls got into the taxi outside the Clayton Arms, Nelson, at about 10.30pm on Sunday after visiting friends.

Police say anyone who saw the girls getting into a red and white taxi in Nelson, or saw a taxi in a lay-by in the Barden Lane, Greenfield Road area or saw them being dropped off in Burnley, can contact Burnley CID on 01282-425001 in strictest confidence.

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