A TEENAGER who hit two young girls and threatened to set a family home on fire has been found guilty of assault.

Amelia Clarke, 18, attacked the 16-year-olds, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as they walked home from a friend’s house in Benfleet Park Road, Benfleet.

She jumped out of a green Vauxhall Corsa with blacked out windows and grabbed one of the girls by the throat.

One of the young victims told Southend magistrates Clarke’s friends had tried to pull her away during the midnight attack, on May 25.

The girl said: “She was shouting at her friends, saying if they didn’t get away, she was going to smash our faces in.”

The terrified girls got into a friend’s silver Ford Focus, but Clarke leaned in and punched one of them in the ear.

The impact of the blow caused one of her earrings to become embedded in her skin, and she had to be taken to Basildon Hospital for treatment.

Nearly three weeks later, the girls were walking past the Harvester pub, at Tarpots, Benfleet, when Clarke jumped out of the same car and challenged them to a fight.

Her victim said: “That’s when she started threatening me, telling me she was going to set my house on fire and kill my family.”

The young girl was then punched in the nose and the right ear and fled across the road to the Co-op store, where she called her mother.

Natalie White, defending Clarke, said her client denied both attacks had ever happened. The girls had concocted a story, she claimed.

She said to the complainant: “In relation to May 25, I would would put it to you the assault didn’t take place and you made it up because you were at Thorney Bay Caravan Park with two males older than you and you didn’t want to get into trouble with your parents.”

The two girls denied making up the story and said they had both been scared by the attack.

Clarke, of the Rundels, Benfleet, was found guilty on three assault charges. She was bailed until January 5 while pre-sentence reports are prepared.