A teenager has been convicted for the second time of raping a girl in a graveyard.

Alex Maynard, 18, was originally found guilty of raping his victim in the graveyard of St Nicholas's Church in Dyke Road, Brighton, after a trial in July last year.

He was jailed for four-and-a-half years but the conviction was overturned for legal reasons in April this year and the Appeal Court ordered a retrial.

A jury of seven men and four women at Hove Crown Court found him guilty for the second time by a majority of ten to one today.

But he was unanimously cleared of trying to intimidate the victim and her boyfriend in a phone call made while he was on remand at Lewes prison in June.

Judge Guy Anthony jailed Maynard again for four-and-a-half years for the rape and ordered him to sign the sex offenders' register for life.

Maynard, of The Crescent, Bevendean, Brighton, will have to serve half the sentence, which runs from the original conviction in June, 2005, before he can be released on licence.

During the ten-day retrial the court heard the attack was filmed by a couple whose home overlooks the graveyard. They were collecting evidence of antisocial behaviour in the graveyard to hand to police and council officers.

The couple did not realise they had witnessed a rape until police sealed off the graveyard the morning after the attack in January, 2005.

Maynard had denied raping the victim.