AN AREA opposite Cobo Village was sealed off by police apparently investigating a rape. Officers would not reveal any details yesterday but said today that no one has been charged.

Residents reported seeing police searching on the ground outside Checkers Express for several hours on Saturday night.

They were also checking between cars using torches at about 10.30pm.

Some families could only get to their homes via other routes after the car park was sealed off.

‘We got there as police arrived. We saw a girl in the back of a police car crying her eyes out. We were told to go back the way we came by police and it was a crime scene,’ said housewife Michelle Brun, 34, who lives at the back of La Mare de Carteret playing fields.

‘A group of youths were saying to people going past that a girl had been raped,’ she said.

She believed the alleged incident happened while there were a large number of people, including youths, watching films on the beach.

‘She was sat in the back of the police car on her own for about 45 minutes. I was very surprised,’ said Mrs Brun.

Several sources have told the Guernsey Press that a teenager has been arrested by police and released on bail in relation to the alleged crime, but this cannot be confirmed.

‘Apparently a teenage girl was allegedly raped in the car park – the lad who supposedly did it has been arrested,’ claimed another woman, who also lives near La Mare de Carteret playing fields.

Cobo chip shop cook Sandra Corbet, 49, who was working on Saturday, said: ‘During the course of the night there was quite a considerable group of teenagers in the area. They were messing around, pushing each other in a trolley.

‘When we saw police we thought that they had come to move the kids away because they were getting too noisy. When we finished work at 11 we went to cross into the car park but it was cordoned off.

‘We talked to one of the policemen who said there had been an incident,’ she said.

‘He told us to wait. Up against Checkers wall was another police officer speaking to three or four of the kids. The other policeman came back and said we could go to our cars but only one by one and we were escorted to our cars.’

A resident who did not wish to be named said the car park was cordoned off and he saw six or seven police officers in the area.

‘I looked out of the window and they were looking between cars. Police said there had been an incident and that was all they could say. There were a load of kids around here, aged 14 to 16 I would say, and there was up to 20 people in the area,’ he said.

‘It was quite scary,’ said the man, who has three young children.

Another resident, who also wished to remain anonymous, whose property is near the car park, said he arrived home in a taxi about 11.15pm.

‘We were dropped off outside Checkers Express and the police were interviewing people and talking to some youngsters. I noticed a cordon around the car park. We asked if it was safe to go down our driveway – we did not know what was going on,’ he said.

‘They ‘the police’ led us around the cordon to our driveway. We asked twice what was happening and they would not give an answer.

‘They had torches and were searching the ground for something.

‘They were still there at 1am when we went to bed. The cordon was right round the car park and it was a bit of a shock.’

A resident who arrived back home at Cobo in his taxi at 4.30am said there was no cordon then.