A SEVENTEEN-year-old Cumbrian girl was sexually assaulted by a stranger who sat next to her as they travelled on a train from Carlisle.

Former soldier Dale Alderson, 44, told a Carlisle Crown Court jury he did nothing wrong while on the train to Maryport with the girl and there was nothing sexual or inappropriate in his conduct.

He was convicted of two sexual assaults after a trial.

Earlier in the case, the jury heard that the defendant did not know the teenager but he struck up a conversation with her as they waited for the train one evening in early 2022.

At one stage, the court heard, he told the girl she was "gorgeous" and then later showed her a picture on his phone of the singer Pink, commenting that she had “pierced nipples”.

Before the verdicts were returned, Judge Michael Fanning summed up the evidence.

Referring to the girl, he said she recalled being on the platform at Carlisle railway station at 8.50pm waiting for a train to Maryport when she overhead the defendant making an insulting comment about somebody.

After telling the teenager it was not a reference to her, he began chatting with her, telling her he had been in military special forces. Thinking he would be interesting, she agreed he could with next to her during the journey.

On the train, he told her there were a “lot of Russian spies” and that you could never know when somebody might leave a package on the train and “blow everyone up.”

“You don’t even know who I am,” he  told her.

The teenager said she was too scared to move away. Sitting next to him, she realised Alderson was drunk and stank of alcohol.

While sitting with her he said she was gorgeous, and that she had beautiful eyes. After a female conductor approached and asked if she was okay, he became “aggressive,” talking about wanting to “smash" the conductor's face in.

“The only reason I’m going to stay on this train is that you are on it,” the defendant told the girl. He then offered her his hand, as if wanting to shake hands - but instead kissed her hand, which she pulled away.

A short time later, his arm brushed against her breast, and he made a comment about that part of her body but he did not pull his arm away. Another conductor approached and asked if she was all right.

She replied “yes” but at the same time tried to shake her head to hint that she was not okay. He kept asking how old she was, and she told him 17.

The girl spoke of freezing and being in shock before eventually leaving her seat, going to the toilet and locking herself in. The train staff found her there, "in floods of tears," and clearly distressed.

“She spoke of being scared," said the judge. "It was terrifying. She was 17 and didn’t know what to do.”

The defendant denied commenting about the girl’s breasts and said that if he had brushed against them, it was inadvertent. He is a father and happy with his partner, he said, describing himself as “happy go lucky”.

He travelled a lot and liked talking to people. He could not recall showing the girl a topless picture of Pink but agreed that the image was on his phone.

He was never in special forces. On the day of the train journey, he had consumed one can of cider and three of lager. He said the alcohol had no effect on him.

He said he had no sexual intentions towards the girl.

After the two guilty verdicts were delivered, Judge Fanning told the defendant, of New Street, Southowram, Halifax, that he will be sentenced on September 27 after a background report is prepared.