A MAN accused of robbing a schoolgirl in broad daylight in the centre of Carlisle has gone on trial.

A jury at the city’s crown court heard yesterday how the 13-year-old was walking with friends in Lowther Street at about 3.20pm on July 4 last year. As one pal stopped to call her mother, the girl took out her own iPhone, valued at £500.

“She had her phone stolen by a male who grabbed her hand, twisted her hand, made her release her phone and then ran off with it,” prosecutor Tim Evans told jurors. “She chased him for a distance. He got away.”

The shocked girl gave police a description of the appearance and clothing of the robber and told officers she would recognise him if she saw him again.

Two months later, in early September, the girl picked out Aaron Raymond Duncan during a video identification parade. But when quizzed by police, 30-year-old Carlisle man Duncan denied he was responsible for the crime and later pleaded not guilty to an allegation of robbery.

“The issue for you in this trial is whether you can be sure whether it was this defendant who was the man who committed that robbery,” Mr Evans said to the jury of eight men and four women. “He (Duncan) says no, it was not him.”

The trial continues.