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A number of youths are to be prosecuted in connection with an attack on a 13-year-old girl more than 18 months after it happened.
The youths are suspected of assaulting the girl and trying to set her hair on fire.
The teenagers — who cannot be identified — are facing charges of sexual assault and false imprisonment following the incident, which the Belfast Telegraph revealed last year.
The alleged victim, who is now aged 15, also cannot be named for legal reasons.
The Public Prosecution Service has confirmed that youths have been charged and papers for the court hearing are now being prepared.
Speaking some months after the attack, the girl told how she was waiting for a train at Downshire halt, near Carrickfergus, when she and three friends noticed some boys loitering nearby.
“We just ignored them,” she said.
But then one of the youths allegedly lunged at one of her schoolmates with a cigarette lighter.
It was, the girl said, a special ‘tampered’ lighter with a flame eight to 10 inches in height.
The youths had two of the devices and the girl said she could feel the heat sear her skin.
“The other girls ran off, two up the stairs and the other two up the ramp,” she explained.
“But one of the boys had grabbed me and was holding me by the arm. They kept putting the lighters up to my face. It was a big flame. They said they would burn my hair off. I was frightened.
“I was dragged along the platform and across the train tracks and they brought me to a wee secluded area behind the station.
“They were pulling at my top and bra, and they were getting really mad as time went on.
“They kept on putting the flame up to my face and they were laughing at me.”
The train she was due to travel on went past, and then another.
The teen, who was unable to leave her house for six months afterwards, apart from going to school, said: “I was so scared I could hardly speak. I was hoping my friends would come back or that someone would walk past.”
She said the youths persistently asked her to perform a sex act on them — which she had to continually refuse.
She spent much of the rest of that summer in her bedroom.
“Still, now, there are places I won’t go to,” she said.
