AN eight year old girl told a court how she was dragged into a derelict garden and indecently assaulted after being asked to help look for a missing dog.

The girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said she had been 'scared and frightened' by the man, who approached in the street near to her home in the Bank Top area of Blackburn.

The girl spoke of her ordeal during a police interview shown to the jury in the trial of Mark Andrew Hayhurst, who stands accused of abducting and indecently assaulting two young girls in Blackburn in August this year.

Hayhurst, 33, of Mansfield Street, Audenshaw, Manchester, denies two counts of abduction and two of indecent assault on the girls, aged seven and eight.

The prosecution has told Preston Crown Court that the eight year old girl was approached by Hayhurst as she walked home from the shops at about 5.30pm on August 9.

She said the man who approached her asked her to help him look for his lost puppy, but when she refused, he pulled her into the back of an empty house, where he indecently assaulted her.

The girl added: "He said to me 'will you help me look for my dog?' But I told him I had to go home and that I would come back later, but I wasn't going to because I was scared.

"He dragged me into the garden. I was trying to get away from him. I felt scared and frightened."

The girl said that after she had been dragged into the garden the man had indecently assaulted her by pulling up her dress.

(Proceeding)