A TEENAGER tried to take her own life after a man sexually assaulted her and her friend, a court heard.

Cavan Bryan, who offered drugs to two underage girls while they were drunk and then committed sexual offences against them, was called a ‘liar’ by a judge as he faced sentencing.

The incident took place in Barrow in the early hours of a morning in 2021. 

Bryan, now 20, who is formerly of Barrow but now lives in Arnside Crescent, Morecambe, committed the offences when he 17.

Her Honour Judge Heather Lloyd slammed Bryan, saying that he 'lied from the beginning to the end,' and that his victims, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, might have been spared a lengthy trial if he had given a guilty plea in the first instance. 

Bryan had pleaded guilty to supplying a controlled Class A drug (cocaine) at an earlier hearing but denied three counts of sexual activity with a child, two counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and one count of making an offer to supply cocaine to another.

The jury convicted him after hearing he kissed one girl on the lips while touching her breasts and genitals and placed his hand on the other’s bottom and touched her genitals over her clothing.

After hearing both victim impact statements being read out to court by prosecutor Peter Barr, Judge Lloyd said: "You probably do not remember them - they remember you." 

The older girl submitted to the record: "This incident has left me scared to go out of the house. I will never get over what he did to me." She said she had made an attempt on her own life after her encounter with Bryan. 

Both the girls and Bryan had been drinking prior to the incident and he himself had taken cocaine. The court heard that Bryan asked them for directions to a pub despite him living in the area, and the judge accused him of using this as a means to start talking to them. 

The court heard after a chance meeting, Bryan led them towards a reservoir, and even helped one of them as she was so intoxicated. However the judge could not be certain that Bryan supplied the cocaine as means of facilitating the sexual offences. 

Bryan's lawyer Michelle Brown placed his decisions in the context of an upbringing involving both of his parents spending time in prison and said the crimes were 'influenced by immaturity.'  

He received 14 months in a young offenders’ institute. 

The maximum age for men to be sent to a young offenders’ institute is 21. Bryan will serve half of his sentence on licence.