A long- distance lorry driver has been cleared of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old girl.

The teenager told Chelmsford Crown Court that Robert Pratchett from Alyssum Walk, Colchester, had assaulted her after they went drinking and dancing at the Hippodrome nightclub on April 29 last year.

But a jury took less than two hours to clear the 41-year-old on Wednesday after hearing that the girl craved attention and had already had a string of sexual partners.

The court was also told that she had hallucinated after drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in the months before the alleged attack.

Mr Pratchett had arranged the night out with the girl, and the pair were planning to sleep in his lorry parked in Colchester town centre.

But the teenager made a tearful 999 call to police in the early hours of the morning claiming that Mr Pratchett had started touching her in the cab of the truck.

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