A WOMAN has been cleared of two charges of aiding and abetting her former lover to rape a 12-year-old schoolgirl in the 1990s.

Judge John Cavell ordered the jury to find Susan Morris not guilty following legal submissions at the end of the prosecution case.

Morris is still accused of two charges of aiding and abetting indecent assault on the same girl.

The prosecution allege that Morris and her former lover Christopher Howley took part in a three-in-a-bed sex romp with the victim at a house in Kidderminster.

Howley, 48, formerly of Leawood Grove, Kidderminster, denies raping the girls, indecent assault, indecency with a child, taking indecent photographs and administering a drug with intent to commit indecent assault.

Judge Cavell told the jury of seven women and five men at Worcester Crown Court there was no evidence that 47-year-old Morris, of Dovedale Avenue, Willenhall, had supported rape.

She was not present when the offences were said to have happened. And the alleged victim, now aged 22, gave evidence that she did not mention rape until shortly before she complained to police last year.

Howley, now living in Burton Latimer, near Kettering, took the witness stand on day 10 of the trial to condemn the sex charges as "absolutely ridiculous".

He was stunned when Morris, whom he last saw five years ago, rang him in 2002 to tell him the police were investigating complaints.

"She said our past has come back to haunt us," he said. "I had no reason to be worried because I had done nothing."

The defendants split up after Howley began a new relationship.

The trial continues.