A YOUNG asylum seeker has been cleared of a sex attack on an 11-year-old girl while at a residential education centre at Cranbrook.

The Albanian boy, aged 14, was accused of attempting to rape the girl and indecently assaulting her.

Describing the youth, now 15, as having "vampire teeth", she claimed that he dragged her into some woods and molested her.

The teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had been accommodated at Cranbrook's Swattenden Centre under a scheme known as the Appledore Project, which helped under-age asylum seekers.

At Maidstone Crown Court, the teenager pleaded not guilty to attempted rape, an alternative charge of indecent assault and a third charge of indecent assault. He did not give evidence but his lawyer Jason Dunn-Shaw suggested that the girl made up the allegations.

The jury took just half an hour to acquit the teenager of all charges.