Tennis coach Claire Lyte wore her pupil’s underwear

A tennis coach accused of having an affair with a 13-year-old girl has admitted wearing the girl’s pink underwear.

Claire Lyte, 29, a coach at the Lawn Tennis Association’s training academy at Loughborough, denied that her choice of underwear was a sign of intimacy, insisting that she had simply picked them out at random and put them on without noticing the teenager’s name tag.

Under cross-examination at Liverpool Crown Court yesterday, the former professional tennis player maintained that she had been the victim of a series of “wicked lies” and that the girl had been persuaded by her mother to make up her story about a sexual relationship.

The prosecution claims that the mother, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, returned unexpectedly one Sunday in October, 2005, to discover the coach and daughter in bed having sex