A teenager accused of carrying out a series of cruel acts against two boys and two girls has been cleared of all charges by a jury a Bradford Crown Court.

The jury took more than four hours to find 19-year-old Kraig Mellor not guilty on nine charges of child cruelty and three allegations of assault.

Mellor, of Keighley, was also acquitted of making threats to kill one of the boys and a woman.

But the teenager was convicted of assaulting the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and he was ordered to do 200 hours' community service.

During that incident Mellor pushed his hand hard into the woman's face during an argument.

As a result the woman, who had previously suffered a broken nose, ended up with two black eyes.

Judge Norman Jones QC told Mellor that he had taken account of the fact that he had already served the equivalent of a three-month custodial sentence on remand awaiting his trial.

Mellor's barrister Neil Davey stressed that he had not been in any further trouble since being granted bail in January and it was his first conviction for an offence of violence.

The prosecution had alleged that Mellor held the two boys out of an attic window and goaded a Lurcher puppy to 'get them'.

He was also accused of giving a young girl cold showers and putting a four-year-old girl on a shelf above a door.

But giving evidence Mellor rejected suggestions that he had put the children, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, in danger.

Mellor said he had never left the four-year-old girl perched on the shelf, but said the children liked to hang onto the shelf themselves and drop off.

He claimed that the children would play tug-of-war with the Lurcher puppy and 'rag it about' when it grabbed their coats.

Mellor said he had not deliberately given the four-year-old girl cold showers, but claimed it took an hour for the water to hot up and he usually waited about 20 minutes before using it.

He said the girl sometimes cried because the water made her bed-wetting sores sting.

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