A YORK jury was today deciding if a health club employee sexually abused a schoolgirl on work experience.

The prosecution alleged that Darren Atmore indecently assaulted the girl on the day she started a two-week placement and repeated it two days later.

On each occasion, he trapped her in a small room in the laundry of the York club, prosecutor Tom Storey told the court.

The first time he told her to tell nobody because he would lose his job, and she kept quiet, said Mr Storey.

But after the second, the girl refused to go to the club for the second week of her placement and told her deputy headteacher, who called in the police.

Atmore, 18, of Hotham Avenue, Acomb, denies two charges of indecent assault.

The jury at York Crown Court has heard that he and the girl had not met before she began her work experience, and that he had got engaged the week before the sex assaults allegedly occurred. Other staff members gave evidence on his behalf.

His barrister, Nicholas Barker, alleged that Atmore was in line for promotion at the club and that the girl had made up the allegations to explain why she did not complete the work placement. Atmore said nothing happened between the two.

Mr Barker claimed that other staff at the health club had noticed nothing odd about the girl and that she had exchanged pleasantries with Atmore and had shown him photographs after the alleged assaults.

She had also told her mother that she did not like the work she was doing and had not told anyone about the sex attacks for some days.

But Mr Storey alleged that the girl had difficulty talking about sexual matters to other people and had not wanted to make the allegations to other staff.

Eventually, she had screwed up courage to send a text message to her boyfriend and speak to the deputy head teacher.

Updated: 11:11 Thursday, April 10, 2003