Decision to prosecute 16-year-old, 15 at the time of the alleged rape, is criticised by anti-rape campaigners

A girl who claimed she was raped when she was a 15-year-old virgin was today convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice by making a false allegation.

The girl told police that a 14-year-old boy had raped her in his bedroom and she had been "too scared" to cry out to her friends.

But after a three-day trial at a youth court in Cheltenham, a district judge decided the girl had had consensual sex with the boy and had lied to police and the court. The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will be sentenced next month.

The decision to prosecute the girl, now 16, was criticised by anti-rape campaigners.

Lisa Longstaff, of the campaign group Women Against Rape, said: "It is awful that a girl so young has been prosecuted in this way."

The girl, from Gloucestershire, claimed she was raped by the boy in his bedroom under his bedclothes. She said she "froze" and though she told him quietly to stop, she did not call out to her friends for help.

But the prosecution said the girl's account of the alleged rape was "riddled with lies".

Julian Kesner, prosecuting, said she had changed her story, at first saying just the two of them were in the bedroom but later admitting that two other friends were also there.

Kesner said that the day after the alleged attack the girl was spotted holding hands with the boy.

Giving evidence, the girl said she went to the boy's home with a female friend and after the game of truth and dare, the boy "nagged" her to have sex with him but she had repeatedly said she did not want to.

Then when he asked her three or four times to lie down on the bed, she did so just to stop him nagging. She claimed the boy covered them both with duvets, took down her trousers and underclothes, and had sex with her even though she whispered to him to stop.

In his closing speech, the girl's solicitor, Stephen Thomas, said: "She did not consent to have sex with him and she believes that he raped her."

The district judge, Joti Bopa Rai, concluded that the girl consented to sex with the boy, who was arrested over the allegation. She knew that claiming she had been raped would get the boy into trouble, the judge said.

It was possible, the judge added, that the girl had lied because she feared she was pregnant or it could be that she had lied to "cover her tracks". "That lie grew bigger and bigger and bigger," she added.

The judge said she appreciated that the defendant was young but she came across as intelligent. "She knew the consequence of this lie," the judge said.