A FORMER soldier has been acquitted of raping a teenager he allegedly met at a youth club.

Robert Stewart, now aged 39, was found not guilty at 12.30pm today by a Bolton Crown Court jury of sexually assaulting and raping the girl, offences he had denied.

Prosecutors had alleged he attacked the then-14-year-old in a partially constructed unlocked building in the summer of 1994 a week after meeting her at the youth club.

Mr Stewart, of Sunny Garth, Westhoughton, denied ever having met the alleged victim or even being in Westhoughton in the summer of 1994.

Jurors were told he acknowledged he had grown up in the town and had previously attended the youth club on around 40 occasions and said he stopped attending when he joined the army at the age of 16.

The crown court previously heard how the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, subsequently tried to kill herself after the alleged incident.

She made a complaint to police in 2012 as an adult after undergoing counselling sessions.

She said she only knew her attacker had been called Robert and that he was a soldier. She thought he had been 19-years-old at the time.

During police investigations she picked out Stewart in a photographic identification parade.

Stewart told the court how he had been an Army cadet as a teenager and had enlisted in the regular army in August 1993, leaving Westhoughton the following month to undertake basic training in Chepstow in Monmouthshire, Wales.

He said that he only travelled home on leave at Christmas that year and then visited again for Mother's Day but cut the visit short.

"There was a bit of an argument and so I returned to camp," said Mr Stewart.

Following his passing out parade on June 11 1994 – which his father did not attend – he had nine days' leave but said he decided to travel straight to the Royal School of Mechanical Engineering at Chatham in Kent instead, where he was to undertake further training.

"I was 17 and took a bit of a huff about my dad not coming," said Stewart.

He added that he had no more leave that year and denied being in Westhoughton in August 1994.

He disagreed with prosecution suggestions he had returned home again to try and impress his former cadet and youth club friends with his army career.

Mr Stewart said: "The army was my new family.

"I had no interest in going back and hanging out with my old friends."