Sex-charge shopkeeper cleared

A shopkeeper has been cleared of sexually assaulting a schoolgirl in a storeroom at the premises in Oswaldtwistle.

Mahmood Jan (24) was found not guilty after a four-day trial at Burnley Crown Court.

He was discharged from the dock by Judge Jonathan Gibson.

Jan, of Abbeyhills Road, Oldham, had denied the allegation and told the jury nothing happened. The girl, then 14, had alleged Jan touched her hip and tried to kiss her twice after offering her money to clean the room at the Village Pantry, last May. She claimed he had a dirty old mattress on the floor and said she thought he wanted to have sex with her.

Mr Paul Reid, defending, suggested she had been refused cigarettes and alcohol in the shop and had made up the allegation or it had happened to her some other time and place with someone else. He said nothing at all happened with the defendant in the room.