Caroline suspect 'admits assault'

Caroline Dickinson was staying in a youth hostel in Brittany in 1996

The man accused of the rape and murder of Caroline Dickinson has admitted sexually assaulting the schoolgirl at a youth hostel, a French court has heard.

Caroline, 13, from Launceston in Cornwall, was suffocated in a hostel on a school trip to Brittany in 1996.

Spaniard Francisco Arce Montes, 54, said he covered the schoolgirl's mouth during the assault, but said she was alive when he left, prosecutors say.

He also admitted stalking youth hostels for sex, on the first day of his trial.

Sex assault

The prosecution said Mr Montes admitted using a wad of cotton to silence Caroline while sexually assaulting her, but said he did not kill her.

Timeline: French investigation

Prosecutors told the court in Rennes Mr Montes was a serial sexual predator of young girls during lengthy travels through Europe and South America during a 15-year-period.

Before Caroline's death, he had preyed on children in youth hostels in Britain, Holland, France and Spain, showing a preference for girls aged 12 to 15.

Prosecutors told the court Mr Montes, a waiter and former lorry driver, denies charges of rape and murder.

Caroline's parents John Dickinson, 45, his ex-wife Sue, 46, and their daughter Jenny, 19, were present in the court.

A court official, outlining the prosecution case, said that earlier on the night Caroline died Mr Montes had tried, unsuccessfully, to assault another English girl in a separate youth hostel.

Frustrated by his failure, he drove 12 miles and broke into the hostel where Caroline and 40 other pupils from Launceston College were sleeping.

Caroline died "in tens of seconds and a maximum of two minutes", the court was told.

Night attack

Mr Montes, who faces life imprisonment if convicted, sat blank-faced as details of his alleged sexual offences were read out.

Van carrying Francisco Arce Montes arrives at Rennes court

When a court official finished reading the prosecution case, presiding judge Fabienne Doroy asked the defendant: "Do you agree with what has been said?"

After a pause, Mr Montes muttered: "Would you like me to answer? I agree."

Caroline was asleep on a mattress on a dormitory floor in Pleine Fougeres when she was attacked during the night and discovered dead on the morning of 18 July.

Her assailant had broken into the first-floor dormitory without waking four other children, who were also from Launceston College.

Schoolteacher Elizabeth Barker described to the court how she had tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate Caroline on morning after she was killed, not realising the girl was dead.

Mrs Barker, who had organised many similar end-of-term trips for Launceston College pupils in the past, said she tried to revive Caroline after two pupils reported she could not be woken and was "a strange colour".

US extradition

The investigation into Caroline's death appeared to have come to a halt in 2001 after more than 3,500 DNA tests failed to reveal the culprit.

But then a US immigration official on holiday in the UK read about Caroline's death in a newspaper, and linked the case to a man arrested in connection with an attack on a woman in Miami, Florida.

Mr Montes was extradited to France after he was arrested in the US in November 2001.

The trial is expected to last until Friday.

Caroline's murder led to an overhaul of the French criminal investigation system.

Large-scale DNA tests were introduced and a police unit with 25 detectives was assigned to the case along with the mass publication of an identikit portrait of the suspect.