The mother of a 13-year-old tennis prodigy discovered that her daughter was having a lesbian affair with her coach but did not report the matter until the girl’s career flagged ten months later, a court was told yesterday.

Claire Lyte, 29, a former Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) young coach of the year, allegedly embarked on a year-long sexual relationship with the teenager and ignored warnings from her employers about the closeness of their friendship.

A jury at Liverpool Crown Court watched the distraught teenager, now aged 15, describe in a videotaped police interview how her mother surprised them as they were locked in a naked embrace on her bed at home on Merseyside. The mother allowed her to return to the LTA’s training academy in Loughborough knowing that Miss Lyte would remain her coach.

Between bouts of tears the teenager said in the same interview that she knew that what they were doing was wrong but that she was too scared to tell anyone. “She shouldn’t have done that,” she said, referring to the older woman. “I am too little, too young.”

Miss Lyte denies five counts of unlawful sexual activity during her time coaching the child. The former professional, whose career was ended by injury, insists that the allegations are a lie concocted by a disappointed parent who had realised that her daughter was not going to make the grade.

Peter Davies, for the prosecution, said that the friendship between student and coach transcended the boundaries of a normal relationship. He said that Miss Lyte was attracted to her pupil and that the feeling was mutual. The sex was consensual but, because of her pupil’s age, unlawful.

Miss Lyte, of Shirley, West Midlands, sat beside her solicitor as she listened to Mr Davies describe how she and the 13-year-old had sex while away at tournaments, in their homes and in the home of the coach’s parents. Mr Davies added: “The defendant denies the allegations. She says nothing at all happened between the girl and herself. She says the mother blamed her that her daughter’s time at the academy was going to end and, with her professional ambitions for her thwarted, proceeded to concoct malicious lies.”

Miss Lyte became the girl’s coach when she moved to the Midlands to attend the academy to be coached intensively two or three hours each day.

Their sexual relationship was said to have begun in May 2005, when the girl’s mother was in Spain. The defendant held her hand and kissed her as a prelude to oral sex.

LTA staff saw the couple regularly together out of hours, said Mr Davies. The coach took to wearing her charge’s clothes, including a jumper, shorts and a pair of knickers, adopted a similar hairstyle and received intimate text messages from her. One witness saw them sharing the same toilet cubicle together, which prompted repeated warnings and internal disciplinary action by the LTA.

One Sunday in October, 2005, Miss Lyte ferried the teenager home from a tournament at about 2pm. The girl’s mother came home early from a party. Mr Davies said: “She pushed her daughter’s bedroom door open and found them indulging in oral sex.” There followed an angry argument. After a number of meetings, the mother decided not to make a formal complaint, to protect her daughter. Ten months later she lodged a complaint with police following a disappointing tournament in Edinburgh. The coach had questioned her pupil’s commitment and desire to play.

The trial continues.

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