A FORMER Huddersfield man broke down in tears after a jury yesterday found him not guilty of indecently touching a young girl and physically assaulting her and a boy.

The jury at Bradford Crown Court took less than half an hour to clear William Dorgu on three sexual allegations and seven further assault charges following a six-day trial.

The court heard that the Nigerian had lived in Huddersfield before moving to Bradford, where he set up his own God Cares Ministry Church and started preaching.

Dorgu, who had previously assisted a pastor at a church in Nigeria in the 1990s, decided to set up the church in Laisterdyke and later Thornbury, in 2003.

But prosecutor Tony Kelbrick alleged that not long after the church was opened Dorgu, 45, indecently touched the girl on the breasts for the first time.

Dorgu, who now lives in Erith, Kent, denied three allegations relating to sexual touching of the girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons.

The court heard Dorgu was also alleged to have kept an assortment of plastic, metal and wooden implements which he used to beat the girl and a young boy, who also cannot be identified.

Mr Kelbrick had alleged: “He would make them choose which implement he was going to use to administer a beating to them.” Dorgu denied a further seven charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in respect of the two youngsters.

Mr Kelbrick said when Dorgu was questioned by police he “entirely and comprehensively” denied committing the offences.

In a defence statement served on the prosecution, Dorgu maintained that the allegations had been fabricated.

Last week Dorgu fought back tears as he told a jury the allegations were entirely untrue.

Dorgu said he came to the United Kingdom from his native Nigeria in the late 1990s.

He was a religious studies student and hoped to qualify as a solicitor.

Asked by his barrister, Ken Green, about the allegations that he sexually assaulted a girl inside his church, Dorgu said: “It’s a lie.”