A MAN has denied attacking a 15-year-old girl in the grounds of her school as she walked home.

James Thomas Colby, 28, claimed he spent the day of the alleged attack wandering around the streets of York drinking and getting lost.

He alleged he was hit by a car at about 6pm and found his way back to the Southview Hostel in Boroughbridge Road, where he was staying, at about 8.15pm after asking for directions.

He denied going to any school or grabbing anyone during November 28.

The jury at York Crown Court have heard the girl describe how that day.

Earlier, her mother had, in a statement read to the jury, said her daughter had been “hysterical and crying” when she phoned her immediately after the alleged attack.

She told the jury she told her to get help at the school and went there herself.

“I have never been so relieved to see her in my life,” the mother told police.

“I flung my arms around her and gave her a big cuddle.”

Colby, of no fixed address, denies a charge of causing actual bodily harm.

Giving evidence, Colby told the jury he was moved by probation from a Hull hostel on November 27 after he was attacked and suffered a black eye.

His only possessions were the clothes he stood up in.

He left the hostel at 10.30am on November 28 with another resident and alleged they bought strong lager from a shop in the city centre and wandered about.

After two or three hours, they parted. “I was pretty drunk, it was strong lager,” he said. “I got clipped by a car, I don’t know where, on a corner,” he claimed.

He suffered injuries to his cheek, finger, chin and hip and he was still in pain when he arrived at the hostel.

Asked why he had been “evasive” in answering staff questions about where he had been, he claimed that it had been because he had been drinking and residents were forbidden to return to the hostel drunk.

He alleged he was “a bit shocked” when police arrived after 10pm and arrested him on suspicion of assaulting the girl.

The trial continues.