A MAN charged with the kidnap and rape of a teenage girl was cleared in court yesterday after telling the jury that she set him up.

Steven Wilkinson, 21, and a large group of family and supporters wept with relief at the end of his ordeal, which began with his arrest 13 months ago.

He was also found not guilty of breaching an order restraining him from contacting the girl, imposed by South Durham magistrates eight days before she alleged that he snatched her off the street and raped her at his home.

Wilkinson told Teesside Crown Court that the girl had arranged to meet him on the occasion she alleged he forced her into his pick-up truck.

They went to his house where they kissed and cuddled on the settee before he asked her if she wanted to go upstairs.

He said that they then had consensual sex. Later, he drove her home and at her instruction did not drop her off outside her house.

Wilkinson told police: "She kissed me goodbye saying, 'See you later, phone you, love you'."

When told she had accused him of kidnap and rape, he said: "She has set me up."

Wilkinson claimed the girl phoned him on the three days before they met, and promised to phone him at 8pm, after he dropped her off.

He said that she did not call, and when he phoned her home the phone was put down on him.

He said: "I started thinking she has set me up, and I felt like an idiot. I had broke my restriction order by going to see her because she asked me."

The girl told police she was walking to a bus stop after work when Wilkinson dragged her into his Toyota pick-up, held her in a headlock as he drove to his home, then slapped her face and raped her in his bedroom, said Deborah Sherwin, prosecuting.

Wilkinson, of Bowes Road, Startforth, Barnard Castle, County Durham, was found not guilty of kidnap and rape on October 25, last year, and three breaches of a restraining order between October and March.