A GARAGE worker "cruised the streets" trying to pick up teenage girls, a court heard.

Dean Meadows, aged 23, is charged with 10 counts of attempted abduction of girls aged 13 and 14 during an eight month period between 2005 and 2006.

The defendant asked the youngsters if they wanted a lift anywhere, beckoned them to his car and asked one girl to give him a kiss in exchange for cigarettes, it is claimed.

Nicola Gatto, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court that Meadows was aged 21 at the time of the alleged offences and was caught when one of the girls later spotted his car outside his mother's house in Westhoughton.

She said: "He effectively cruised the streets of Wigan and, in one case, Bolton attempting to pick up girls and drive them away in his car.

"We say the method was the same in each case.

"He drove up to unsuspecting girls, wound down his car window and asked them to enter his vehicle by offering lifts.

"Many of them fled, and were anxious and intimidated by his persistence," Miss Gatto said.

The court heard all the girls had reported the offender driving a small red car.

Many noted part of the registration number, with one girl remembering the full details.

It was claimed that Meadows began trying to pick up young girls on July 14, 2005, when he "repeatedly asked" a girl, aged 14, in school uniform to get in his Fiat Punto. It was one of two small red cars he admitted owning.

Miss Gatto said the alleged victim noted the end of the car registration was "HDM" and later saw a car parked outside the home of Meadows' mother in Bankside, Westhoughton, bearing the registration N644 HDM.

Miss Gatto told the jury not to concern themselves with what Meadows might have done had any of the girls got into his car.

"Perhaps he wasn't intending to put them in his car to discuss the cricket with them," she said.

Meadows, of Dartington Road, Platt Bridge, Wigan, denies all the charges. The trial continues today.