AN ESSEX man has been warned he could be jailed for life after being convicted of raping and sexually assaulting a teenager.

Christopher Frost plied the girl, who comes from the Clacton area, with alcohol before indecently touching her and had gone on to rape her, Ipswich Crown Court was told.

Frost, 45, of Cedar Avenue, Tiptree, had denied five offences of indecently assaulting the girl, causing a child to engage in sexual activity, sexual activity with a child and four offences of rape.

However, a jury yesterday returned unanimous guilty verdicts on the five offences of indecent assault and charges of sexual activity with a child and causing a child to engage in sexual activity, and guilty verdicts by an 11-1 majority on the four offences of rape, after more than seven hours of deliberations.

Frost had denied a further offence of sexual assault on a 16-year-old girl and was found not guilty.

Adjourning sentence for a probation report, Judge Rupert Overbury told Frost: “The maximum sentence is life – these were multiple rapes. You are facing a substantial-length sentence,” said the judge. He said the probation report would need to assess if Frost posed a risk to the public by the commission of further serious offences in the future.

Judge Overbury ordered Frost to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register and remanded him in custody until the sentencing hearing.

During the trial the court heard that Frost had given the girl so much alcohol that she was sick and had fallen asleep. When she woke up she found he had pulled down her trousers and was touching her sexually.

The girl had called him a pervert and had punched him in the face.

Andrew Thompson, prosecuting, said Frost had raped the girl several weeks later and had ignored her protests that he was hurting her.

The court heard that some of the offences dated back to the late 1990s and they came to the attention of the police in 2009.