A PARENT from north Durham has spoken of his outrage after his 12-year-old daughter was left by leisure club staff to wander the streets of Newcastle's West End for three hours.

The revelation follows a similar situation at the same trampoline club, in Stanley, last month when two ten-year-old girls, Georgia Telford and Georgia Batty, were turned away from the Louisa Leisure Centre to walk the town's streets at night, more than a mile away from home.

After reading of their plight, the father of 12-year-old Ashley Johnstone decided to come forward to tell of his daughter's experience.

Paul Johnstone said that his daughter had gone with friends to the Lightfoot Centre in Walker, Newcastle, to watch them take part in a trampoline competition.

After an argument with staff, he said, Ashley was told to leave the premises - although staff from the club dispute this in a written report of an internal investigation into the incident.

Unable to trace her, staff of Derwentside Leisure Ltd decided to head back to Stanley, in a hired coach, without her.

Ashley walked for three hours, from Newcastle's West End to the only place that she knew in the city, St James's Park, where she caught a bus home.

Mr Johnstone said yesterday: "She was in a terrible state and I am still deeply annoyed.

"Derwentside Leisure's report into it was a whitewash, as far as I'm concerned. It's like they're saying, 'your child is worth nothing'. They also say my wife, Tracey, was calm when she was told, but she was in floods of tears."

The Derwentside Leisure report, which was compiled shortly after the incident in April, apologises for causing distress and admits that her parents should have been called earlier, but it maintains that Ashley walked out of the centre herself.

It said: "Derwentside Leisure Ltd are very concerned about the incident, and the fact that it caused distress to Ashley and her family was deeply regrettable."

General manager of Derwentside Leisure Ltd, Colin Simm, stood by the report yesterday, and said procedures had since been reviewed