A fugitive who went on the run for five years has been found guilty of trying to rape a 12-year-old girl while visiting her home in Axminster.

Friday Uguru vanished after being arrested and interviewed by police in 2017 when he tried to have sex with the child as her mother was cooking supper downstairs at her home.

He denied having any sexual contact with the girl but his DNA was found on her knickers. He was found guilty by a jury at Exeter Crown Court despite them not being told that he had absconded for more than five years.

Uguru is a Nigerian who came to Britain on a visitor's visa in 2012, and had overstayed and been given notice to leave the country three years before he carried out the sex attack. He failed to report back to police in January 2018 and remained at large until being arrested last year.

He claimed that he had been framed by evidence being smeared on the inside of the girl’s underwear in a deliberate attempt to get him into trouble, but expert forensic evidence showed his account was impossible.

Judge David Evans told him that his attempts to evade justice and to lie his way out of trouble at the trial had caused the young victim enormous additional and unnecessary distress.

Uguru, aged 51, previously of Pinhoe Road, Exeter, but now of no fixed address, denied attempted rape but was found guilty by the jury. He was cleared of an additional sexual assault on the same victim.

Judge Evans remanded him in custody and told him: “The 12-year-old girl told her mother you had tried to rape her just after you had done it. In front of this jury you have told an obviously ludicrous tale.

“That story required the girl and her mother and two neighbours to have cooked the whole thing up and to have maintained the fabrication for six years. What nonsense.

“Having told these lies, you absconded for more than five years during which the victim has been subjected to terrible psychological effects not only by what you did but by her awful wait for justice.

“It has weighed very heavily on her. You have ruined her life.”

The jury asked during the trial why there had been such a long delay but were given a non-committal answer. The judge explained the true position only after they returned their guilty verdict.