THE parents of a 13-year-old girl had to listen in horror as she was raped by a teen ‘sexual predator’.

The rapist, who was 15 and cannot be named for legal reasons, attacked the girl in an alley near Clitheroe FC’s ground, Preston Crown Court was told.

Rachel Smith, prosecuting, said the girl’s frantic parents drove round town trying to find her after a friend told them she was in trouble.

When they finally got through to her on the phone, they heard the end of the rape ordeal with their daughter screaming for him to ‘stop it’.

She was discovered in a ‘hysterical state’, naked from the waist down and covered in mud, by dog walker Charles Wood.

Her parents and police arrived at the scene and she immediately told them she had been raped.

Her attacker, who was already on bail for sexual assaulting a 14-year-old girl in August 2010, for which he was later convicted, fled the scene and was later arrested.

At first the boy claimed sex was consensual, but eventually pleaded guilty at court to the attack in Shawbridge Street in January last year.

But people in Clitheroe were slammed by the prosecutor, Judge Norman Wright and police for mounting a campaign against the rape victim over the internet, including Facebook.

The family even received a threat from one teenager threatening to ‘burn their house down’.

He was later dealt with by police, the court heard.

The court was told that officers in the town spoke to a number of people and one teenage girl wrote a letter of apology and met with the victim and her family in a Restorative Justice exercise.

After the boy, who is now 16, pleaded guilty late last year, some of those responsible for the abuse apologised, the court heard.

Ms Smith said: “One of the features of this case, the consequences of his denial and the length of time it took for this matter to be resolved was that a very large number of people in the Clitheroe area adopted the view that she was lying, that the defendant was telling the truth and set about in a variety of extremely unpleasant ways of expressing those views.”

Judge Wright said this was ‘snapshot of how a part of society could behave’.

A victim impact statement from the teenage girl said all the abuse had left her feeling it was her fault she had been raped and she needed escorting to and from the bus stop to school.

She rarely goes out in open spaces and suffers nightmares.

The court heard that when the defendant was arrested in the early hours of the next morning he told officers he had an alibi and that the girl had ‘pulled his pants down and raped him’.

He said: “I knew this was coming.”

The court was told that his ‘alibi’ – a friend who he was with on the night of the rape – lied to police in a bid to help the defendant and damage the character of the victim.

It was also revealed that when the parents of the victim heard her being raped they told police there was two separate voices talking about ‘picking up the knickers’.

The defendant’s alibi denied being present and the identity of the mystery voice has ‘not been established to any satisfaction’ Ms Smith said.

Defending, Robert Kearney, said his clients background was a ‘sad story’ of domestic abuse from his father and a downward spiral into drink and drugs after a family bereavement.

Reports will assess his dangerousness and he will be sentenced on Wednesday.

After the hearing DC Will Biggar said: “It is a sad reflection of the society we live in that people jump on the bandwagon without knowing any of the facts and form an opinion and put it all over Facebook.

"It has been the cause of so much additional distress for the victim and her family.”

Judge Wright refused an application from the Lancashire Telegraph to lift an indentification ban on the 16-year-old convicted rapist.