Cospicua man not guilty of defiling 16-year-old girl

A 49-year-old man from Cospicua was found not guilty of defiling a 16-year-old girl. The man was also cleared of violent indecent assault and of participating in sexual acts with the girl.

In her decision, magistrate Audrey Demicoli said that after hearing all the evidence, it resulted that the woman, the victim's mother, had filed several reports with the police on different people, always alleging sexual abuse on her children.

This led the court to suspect that the woman used this course of action as a weapon she used when she had issues with someone. The court heard that in May 2011, the girl’s mother filed a police report claiming that her daughter had been sexually abused by this man. She said she realised that something was wrong because the girl was all of a sudden having a lot of money.

The girl testified that the sex was consensual and that the man used to buy her mobile phones. She said he had given her five phones in a year to have sex with her. The man also denied having forced the girl to have sex with him and said in court that occasionally he used to have sex with her mother.

During the hearing, the mother denied having a relationship with the man but he insisted more that once, that his relationship was with the mother and not the daughter.

He said he used to give the mother money and trouble started when he had no more money to give and was the reason she reported him to the police. The girl, he said, had also threatened him.

The mother’s sister also confirmed that the man did actually have a relationship with her sister and said the girl had told her that the mother threatened to kick her out of the house if she did not make the false allegations against the man. Lawyers Andy Ellul and Vince Micallef defended the man.