Rape accused denies 'circling streets' for girl

An Afghan man accused of targeting and repeatedly raping a 12-year-old girl has denied "circling the streets" to find her after she was allegedly strangled on a bridge.

Giving evidence for a second day at Warwick Crown Court, Ahmad Mulakhil said he did not have a sexual interest in the girl after she spoke to his friend, Mohammad Kabir, in Nuneaton in July.

The 23-year-old previously admitted oral rape but denied two other counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault, child abduction and taking indecent images of a child.

His co-defendant Kabir, 24, has denied intentional strangulation, committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence and attempting to take a child.

On Tuesday, the court heard he did not force the girl to do anything and did not threaten her family - but admitted filming her during a brief period of sexual activity because she had insisted.

Addressing jurors through a Dari interpreter, Mulakhil said the girl had told him she was 19 and appeared to him to be aged in her early 20s.

Prosecutor Daniel Oscroft asked Mulakhil if he and Kabir had split up to look for the girl, with the younger defendant responding: "No. We were in front of her."

Asked if he knew the girl was young by looking at her, Mulakhil added: "No. You can tell from her face that she looks 20-22 years old."

Oscroft asked him: "You were circling around looking for the girl, weren't you?"

Mulakhil replied: "She went the opposite direction and I was taking a different direction. How come I was looking for her?

"After the girl ran away on the bridge, I asked Mohammad Kabir who is this girl and Mohammad Kabir told me she asked him, 'Where are you from?'

"And she was also saying, 'I am 19 and I want to come to your house' and that kind of thing."

Referring to extensive CCTV footage that has been shown to the jury, Mulakhil said: "As you can see in the videos, we never chased or followed that girl."

Mulakhil told jurors if they looked "closely" at the footage of him walking with the girl near the grassy area where the admitted oral rape took place, they would see it was the 12-year-old holding his hand.

He added: "She is ahead of me and still holding my hand. She could easily have left me and walked away."

Kabir had sent him a message with angry face emojis, Mulakhil said, after he had "told him that the girl is following me but not leaving me alone".

Denying he had taken the girl to a quiet place for more than an hour to take advantage of her, Mulakhil said: "If it was what I wished, we would have gone to my friend's.

"I didn't do anything against the girl's wish. Both of us are sitting by the footpath. If she was forced to do anything she could have left."

Mulakhil added that he "wouldn't be together" with the girl if he had known she was not 19.

Asked if he knew what he was doing was wrong, Mulakhil told the jury: "No, it's not the case. I have not done anything against the law."

During his defence, Kabir, also assisted by an interpreter, denied pulling sexual faces at the girl in a park, saying "I have not done it and therefore I have nothing to say about it."

He told the court: "She said to me 'hello where are you from?' Then she came close to me and said 'I like you'.

"I told her to stay away from me."

Kabir told jurors he had not strangled the girl or touched her neck or any other part of her at any point.

"That was a wrong allegation she made," he said.

"I didn't do it. There would be DNA if I had done something."

The trial continues.

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