A JURY has found a babysitter not guilty of raping two young girls he looked after in the 1990s.

During a four-day trial it was alleged that Carl Ozard had raped the girls when they were aged seven and 10.

The younger girl alleged Ozard had raped her on several occasions after putting her to bed and the older girl claimed that he had abused her in the living room at her home, only stopping when her heard a car pull up outside the house and her mother returned home.

The prosecution told the court that in 2014, after watching a rape storyline in the television soap opera Eastenders, memories of abuse came back to the younger girl and she managed to contact 36-year-old Ozard via Facebook.

An exchange of messages followed which did not overtly mention rape allegations, but during which the prosecution alleged that both the girl and Ozard knew that was what was being referred to.

When questioned by police, Ozard, of Bolton Road, Westhoughton, denied he raped either girl, telling the court that he had stopped his babysitting duties by the time the offences were alleged to have been committed.

He also stressed that his Facebook messages had been misinterpreted and that he was not admitting crimes or apologising for raping the girl in his messages.

In her summing up of the case to the jury of five men and seven women, Nicola Gatto, defending, stressed that they must be sure Ozard was guilty of the offences before convicting him of them.

Ozard had pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape and one of attempted rape, claiming the allegations against him had been made up.

After deliberating for just over an hour, the jury unanimously cleared him of all offences and after being released from the dock he hugged his family who were sitting in the public gallery.