A MAN who raped an Accrington schoolgirl when he was aged 16 has today been jailed for six years.

Zak O'Brien, now 21, was said to have grabbed the girl's arms and told her ‘come on, don't be chicken’.

His victim only came forward three years after the attack when she heard that he was about to be released from a young offenders’ institute.

O'Brien, at the time living in Accrington, had a record for violence and dishonesty, but no previous convictions for sex offences.

O'Brien, now of Firbank, Bamber Bridge, was convicted by a jury of one specimen count of sexual assault on a child and one charge of rape.

He was placed on the sex offenders' register for life.

The defendant had denied the allegations and claimed he had never had sex with the girl.

The court had been told how the attack took place during the school summer holidays.

The girl said O'Brien started talking to her and kissing her and she didn't know what to do.

The victim thought the defendant had been drinking as she could smell alcohol on his breath.

She had not told anyone what had happened as she was scared she would not be believed, the court heard.

The hearing was told O'Brien was arrested in detention in January last year, questioned and claimed the allegations were untrue.

Louise Kitchin, for O'Brien, said he was struggling to come to terms with the jury's verdicts.

The offences were committed when he was a boy and he was now a very different person, she said.

Sentencing, Recorder Neil Flewitt, QC, said O'Brien had had a disturbed childhood and had been beginning a life of crime, but there had been no similar conduct or any indications of similar conduct in the five years since the offences.

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