A mother who caught a tennis coach in a naked embrace with her 13-year-old daughter delayed complaining to police for ten months because of death threats, a court was told yesterday.

Claire Lyte, 29, a highflying coach at the LTA training academy, had threatened to kill her daughter, and her, if she went to the authorities with what she had seen, the jury at Liverpool Crown Court heard.

The allegation emerged as the teenage girl’s grandmother gave evidence about what followed the alleged discovery of the couple having oral sex on the teenager’s bed at home in Merseyside at the end of September, 2005.

The grandmother, 89, who cannot be identified, said she had been surprised at first by the delay in reporting the matter.

But she told the court: “My granddaughter said Claire threatened to kill her and her mother if anything happened. She was terrorised.”

She also suggested that the coach’s father, Colin Lyte, started making threats at a showdown meeting arranged between the two families at a Knutsford service station on the day after the alleged encounter. The grandmother said that Mr Lyte had urged them to forgive and forget because he had “friends in high places”.

Miss Lyte, of Shirley, West Midlands, was once a professional tennis player but her career was cut short by injury. She helped to bring elite young talent to the Lawn Tennis Association’s academy in Loughborough.

She denies five counts of unlawful sexual activity between May 2005 and June 2006, calling the allegations malicious lies concocted by a disappointed mother who only went to the police when she knew that her daughter was not going to make the grade.

The grandmother said that Miss Lyte had told her that she could be trusted to look after her granddaughter while they were away on a tennis tour. Soon afterwards the coach was allegedly found in bed with the girl by her mother.

The grandmother said: “My daughter was upset and frightened because she knew what was going on by then. She told me what had happened, that they had been in bed naked. She did not know what to do and did not know where to turn to. It was bad enough to learn they were in bed without any clothes on.”

Peter Davies, for the prosecution, asked her whether any thought had been given to informing the police or the LTA. The grandmother replied: “I went on and on telling my daughter to go to the police. She said when the time was right. She was too ashamed, for her daughter and for the family.”

The grandmother was present when the family met the coach and her parents at Knutsford. “Claire looked disgraceful,” she said. “She was dirty and her hair was a state. I was shocked because before she had always looked so smart.”

During the meeting Mr Lyte promised that his daughter would never do anything similar again and asked the girl’s mother to forgive her. “He was trying to be creepy,” she said. “I lost my temper because it was so awful. I stood up and called her a bloody paedophile. I am very ashamed to have used the word bloody.

“She burst into tears and I asked her, ‘How many other children have you spoiled?’ It was very upsetting. Mr Lyte was pleading and then threatening. He said he had friends in high places and he knew masons, which was ridiculous.”

Later the girl’s elder sister told the court that she appeared withdrawn on her 14th birthday and possessive of her mobile phone. When she saw her sister’s texts she found messages from “Craig”, whom she took to be Miss Lyte. They said: “I want to be with you”; “no one can stop us being together”; and “don’t leave the phone anywhere where anyone can get it.”

The sister said that she decided to confronted the coach at her home, and called her a paedophile.

She said: “Claire said she would never hurt my sister but that nobody understands her feelings. Claire said she loved my sister quite a few times. She never thought it was wrong.”

The sister denied the defence’s suggestion that she had been put up by her mother to give a false account. “Everything I say is true,” she said.

The trial continues.

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