A teenager has been cleared of raping a 17-year-old girl from Dawlish after she fell asleep in his bedroom – but found guilty of groping her.

Jordan Chapman was found guilty of sexual assault after telling a jury at Exeter Crown Court he had touched her as she slept in the hope she would agree to have sex with him.

He described his actions as ’trying to wake her up nicely’, but a jury convicted him of assault by penetration.

Chapman, aged 19, was cleared of rape and a second sexual assault in which the girl alleged she had pretended to be asleep until he started hurting her.

She said she dozed off while watching television with him and awoke to find her pyjama trousers pulled down and him touching her.

She pretended to be asleep because she did not know what to do but eventually told him to stop when he started hurting her.

Chapman, of Great Headland Road, Paignton, denied rape and two counts of assault by penetration. He was found not guilty of rape and the second of the sexual assaults, but convicted of the first, which took place when the girl was asleep.

Judge Mr David Melville, QC, adjourned sentence for a probation report.

During a four-day trial the court heard that the incident happened in July last year after the girl, who had been out with friends in Torbay, asked to spend the night at his house rather than returning to her home near Dawlish.

She said Chapman asked her if she wanted to have sex on more than one occasion during the evening and she said no.

Chapman sent her a stream of messages in the next few days which started by being apologetic but then became abusive and threatening.

One said: ’I know what I did was wrong but you won’t let me make it up to you.’

Chapman told the jury he had touched the girl’s private parts as she slept but was trying to wake her up and believed she consented. He denied the rest of her allegations.

In a police interview he said: ’I thought I could touch her because of the way we were together. I thought I would just wake her up nicely.’

He said he had been smoking cannabis on the night of the incident and was surprised to wake up at 5am to find the girl had left.

He was so upset by her allegations he tried to take his own life and had self-harmed. He said the texts referred to touching the girl, rather than having sex with her.

Mr William Parkhill, defending, said Chapman has mental health issues which should be explored by a full probation pre-sentence report. He said the jury’s verdicts mean it may be possible to suspend the sentence.