A FORMER soldier accused of raping a 14-year-old girl after meeting her at a Westhoughton youth club has told a court he was nowhere near the town at the time.

Robert Stewart, now aged 39, is said to have sexually assaulted and raped the girl in a partially constructed building off Cricketers Way in the summer of 1994.

A jury at Bolton Crown Court previously heard how the girl subsequently tried to kill herself, but could not talk about the alleged rape until she reported it to police in 2012 after undergoing counselling sessions.

She only knew her attacker had been called Robert, was aged 19 and a soldier, but during police investigations she picked out Stewart in a photographic identification parade.

Giving evidence in his own defence Stewart, of Sunny Garth, Westhoughton, denied ever having met the girl or being in Westhoughton in the Summer of 1994, although he admitted that he had previously attended the youth club, where they are said to have met, on around 40 occasions.

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.

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 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 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 2014, disagreeing with prosecution suggestions that he had returned home again to try and impress his former cadet and youth club mates with his army career.

"The army was my new family. I had no interest in going back and hanging out with my old friends," he said.

The trial continues.