A Devon County Council taxi driver has been cleared of molesting a vulnerable teenage girl during trips to and from her special needs school. Kevin Satterley was found not guilty by a jury at Exeter Crown Court after telling a jury that any physical contact with the girl was accidental. The driver was employed by Devon County Council to take the 18-year-old girl from supported accommodation in Newton Abbot to a special school in East Devon. She alleged he touched her breasts and private parts on a daily basis during the final two weeks of last year's summer term as she sat alongside him in the front seat of his taxi. She said he also flirted with her and showed her an adult movie on a portable DVD machine which police later recovered from beneath the passenger seat. The girl, now aged 19, has special needs, an emotional age of between eight and 12, and a vocabulary of a child of about six. Satterley denied any deliberate contact with the girl and told the jury she ignored his repeated requests to sit in the back and insisted on sitting right next to him in the middle seat of his people carrier. He was found not guilty by the jury after a four day trial. Satterley, aged 48, of Redburn Road, Paignton, denied four offences of sexual assault by touching in June and July last year and was cleared of all counts. He denied any inappropriate touching. He said the girl initially say in the back seat and he had asked her to remain there, but she had insisted in sitting in the front with him, moving into the middle seat next to him when he drove a van-type VW. He said the only physical contact between them came when his elbow brushed her arm as he was driving. He said she was often fidgety and messed about in the car, moving from the middle to the window seat as he was driving. He said: "I said to her point blank I would rather she sat in the back, but she refused to do so. I treated her like any other customer. "I have never touched her deliberately. Unless you have one of these vehicles you don't realise how tight they are. If she was next to me my elbow was going to be pushing her or rubbing her arm. "I did not sexually assault her. No. It is not the truth. I was not over-friendly with her and I did not show her any pornographic films."
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