Girl, 15, raped on text message date

A 15-year-old girl was raped by a man she met for the first time after conducting a month-long relationship with him using text messaging, police said yesterday.

The teenager first contacted the man when a 17-year-old male friend who met him through an internet chatroom run by the mobile phone firm T-Mobile passed on his details.

Following a month of calls and messages, the pair met at Wigan station at lunchtime on Monday, before walking through the town centre to a park where she was attacked.

The man then followed the girl as she walked to get a bus home to Hindley, Greater Manchester, before disappearing, police said.

Police said the man had called himself Simon during exchanges with the girl's friend. After he passed on the man's details, the relationship between the victim and her attacker progressed from texting to speaking over the phone and led to Monday's meeting.

There was no suggestion that the man, who was aged about 24, disguised his true age, a Greater Manchester Police spokeswoman said.

He was said to have long dark hair and a dyed red goatee beard. He had a slight Liverpool accent and wore a black jacket with "Live wild, die free" on the back.