A DRIVING instructor is alleged to have groped a teenage pupil's bottom during an under-bonnet check, a court heard.

Neil Hopper, 37, is said to have asked the 18-year-old student to pull up in a cul-de-sac on a secluded industrial estate where they got out of the car to inspect the engine.

The alleged victim told Durham Crown Court of her shock when Mr Hopper placed his hand on her buttock.

Giving evidence on the first day of the trial of Mr Hopper, she said: "He was pointing to the different parts of the engine that I needed to know for my test.

"As he was answering one of my questions, I noticed his hand on the right side of my bum.

"I froze at this point and did not really know what was going on.

"He squeezed my right bum cheek. Then he moved and squeezed the other one, and I moved away and said, 'You can't do that'.

"He said: 'I can't help it'."

Asked by prosecution barrister Deborah Sherwin if she believes it could have been accidental, the young woman replied: "Not at all. It was deliberate."

Miss Sherwin asked how she felt. She replied: "I was in shock. I didn't expect it. When he said, 'I can't help it', it made me think what else could you not help?

"It was more the situation we were in. There was no one else around and I didn't have my mobile phone with me."

But on getting back in the car, she said he then stroked her leg.

"He didn't say anything and I didn't know where things were going."

She said Mr Hopper told her he had never done anything like that and again apologised. "I had got through being in shock and surprise to being quite angry and I said to him, had I not needed him to get home I would have punched him."

On being dropped at her boyfriend's house, the police were informed and Mr Hopper was arrested.

He denied the allegations and claimed if there was any contact it was "accidental".

Mr Hopper, a married father-of-three, of The Hollow, Crook, County Durham, denies sexual assault.

The trial continues.