A FORMER member of the Royal Navy’s Field Gun team has been cleared of abusing a girl just weeks after he took part in the Royal Tournament in the Queen’s Jubilee year, writes a crown court correspondent..

Alan Fewings was 23 and a member of the Devonport team when he competed in the race in front of the Queen at Earls Court in July 1977 and was photographed meeting Prince Charles.

He was accused at Exeter Crown Court accused of sexual assaulting a 13-year-old holidaymaker in his car in a lay-by on Dartmoor the next month.

Fewings, who is a keen triathlete and works as a maintenance engineer at Exeter College, was cleared in just one hour after telling the jury that no sexual contact took place and the allegations are totally untrue.

The complainant alleged she was 13 and on holiday in the Newton Abbot area in August 1977 when Fewings drove her to a country pub and assaulted her in a lay-by on the way home.

She said she was naive, confused and frightened and did not tell anyone at the time. She went to the police after a chance meeting with Fewings at a funeral in 2015 rekindled her memories.

Fewings, now aged 62, of Rydon Avenue, Kingsteignton, denied a single offence of indecent assault and was found not guilty.

He told the jury he joined the Royal Navy when he was 17 and served for 23 years, seeing action in the first Gulf War and rising to the rank of Chief Petty Officer.

He said in August 1977 he was on leave after having taken part in the Royal Tournament as part of the Devonport gun crew. The jury were shown photos of him parading through Plymouth and at the Tournament.

Fewings said he was staying at the same house as the girl, who was in Devon for a week’s holiday, and took her for a ride after supper.

They went to the Star Inn at Liverton in his Mark II Cortina and returned after he had a pint and she had a soft drink. He said they had stopped in a lay-by near the bridge over the River Teign but he could not remember why.

He said: ‘She may have wanted to talk to me about something. There was no touching by either me of her or her of me in the car. None at all.

‘The lay-by is near the river and it is a popular spot for dog walkers and fishermen. People of all ages go there. When we got back to the house she was not upset. I don’t remember us being late.

‘I had no sexual interest at all in a girl who was only 13 or 14. I had a girlfriend at the time who I married the next year.’

Fewings denied discussing the incident when he met the woman on two occasions when they were older. He said she showed no signs of being upset. He said she had not accused him of anything and he had not admitted anything.