A CIVILIAN scenes of crime officer with Lancashire police has been cleared of abducting a 12-year-old East Lancashire girl.

Peter Sharples, 55, told a jury he did not think his actions ever took the youngster out of the control of her mother.

Sharples was employed by Lancashire Police's Pennine Division, which covers Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale, and was living in Sabden at the time of his arrest.

Judge Stuart Baker directed that not guilty verdicts be entered on three of the counts and Sharples, now of Glenview Court, Preston, was acquitted by the jury on the four remaining abduction charges. It took them half an hour to reach their verdicts.

The prosecution claimed Sharples struck up an intense friendship with the girl and though it had never been sexual, it was inappropriate.

The defendant told Preston Crown Court how he had got to know the girl after moving to the Pendle area.

He said the mother worked late and he tried to help her and her family. He took the girl shopping and on a trip to Alton Towers, believing the mother knew where she was going.

His barrister Mr John Jackson asked him: "Was there any occasion from beginning to end that the mother stopped the girl going on a trip with you?"

The defendant replied: "Never, I know the mother trusted me".

He was asked if he considered himself worthy of that trust and responded: "I certainly was".

A scenes of crimes officer for seven years, he had spent three days in police cells as a result of the case, something he had never experienced before.