A COURT has heard suggestions that a young girl who accused her mother's partner of rape, made up the allegations to get him out of her life.

At Bolton Crown Court the 28-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the child, denies raping the nine-year-old and her mother during what Colin Buckle, prosecuting, described as a history of "sexual abuse, aggression, violence and control".

During a week long trial the jury heard how the mother had fled to a friend's Bolton home in her underwear on one occasion after allegedly being raped and police were called.

But the 26-year-old woman then withdrew her allegations and let the man back into her life until the girl came home from school one day and revealed that the man had done "rude things" to her.

READ MORE: Rape allegations

Iain Simkin, defending, stressed that there was no medical evidence that the man had raped either mother or child.

He suggested that, as the household had been a volatile one, the child could have preferred it when he was sent to prison for drugs offences.

"Upon his return that tension returns. Might she have thought of some way to get rid of him?" he said. And he added that the mother could have also encouraged her daughter to lie.

"Consider the risk they had been in collusion," he said.

The man denies three counts of raping the mother and causing actual bodily harm and two counts of raping the girl, one of digital penetration, causing a child to engage in sexual activity and causing her to watch a sexual act..

The jury are expected to begin considering their verdicts on Monday.