A WOMAN is facing jail after being found guilty by a jury of sex crimes against two schoolgirls.

Serena Ransom, 20, was convicted on four of the charges she faced, and cleared of the other three.

A jury at Teesside Crown Court returned its verdicts after three hours of deliberation today (Friday).

Ransom, from Stockton, had denied all seven charges against her and claimed the girls had lied.

She did not give evidence during her five-day trial, but her barrister, Paul Reid, spoke on her behalf.

In his closing speech to the jury, the lawyer said: "These two girls have made similar false complaints."

Mr Reid described Ransom as "a 20-year-old kid of good character" and urged the jury to clear her.

He said parts of the first accuser’s story was “rubbish”, and said: “It doesn’t ring true, does it?”

Ransom was convicted of one charge of sexual assault, but acquitted of two other similar charges.

She was also cleared of causing or inciting the under-age girl to engage in sexual activity.

The jury found her guilty of all three charges relating to a second girl - two of sexual activity with a child, one of causing or inciting sexual activity.

Judge Peter Armstrong remanded Ransom, of Bishopton Lane, Stockton, in custody until she is sentenced on September 17.

Prosecutor Adrian Dent told the jury that the allegations included kissing, touching and giving love bites.

In his closing speech, Mr Dent said: “What you may think is a particularly striking feature of this case is that the two complainants are unconnected to each other.

“They don’t know each other. There’s no suggestion that they have, or could have, got their heads together to tell lies about the defendant, which is effectively what the defence are suggesting to you.

“And yet it is the case that, 12 months apart from each other approximately, at a similar age to each other, they’ve said that things happened to them at the hands of the defendant.”