A TEENAGE babysitter denied yesterday that she was sleeping through a nightmare when she claimed a father tried to have sex with her.

The 15-year-old told a jury she had not dreamed her way through an ordeal with Wayne Armin, 32,

She said she was half asleep on a bed with one of Mr Armin's daughters when he walked into the bedroom and indecently assaulted her. She rolled on to her side facing a wall and he left.

Minutes later, he returned and this time pulled down her clothes and tried to have sex with her, she alleged.

Jamie Hill, defending, suggested what she described later to the police was a bad dream, but she said it was not.

Mr Hill pressed her at Teesside Crown Court: "Isn't the reality of the situation that you were waking up out of some sort of nightmare you were waking up out of a bad dream?" She replied, weeping: "No."

Police arrested Mr Armin the day after the babysitting session when the girl complained to two older friends, who told her mother. He said that he had been "very, very drunk", but denied any wrongdoing.

He repeatedly said he was 98 per cent certain that he had not behaved as she alleged.

Mr Armin, of Thornton Close, Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, denies attempted rape and indecent assault.

The trial continues.