A man is on trial in Dunedin for alleged sexual offending against a 15-year-old girl who said she had felt pressured by the man into sending him nude pictures of herself.
She agreed she told police that sending the photos "made her feel sexy'', but she said she felt she had no excuse not to take the pictures and send them as the accused had sent her a "top up'' for her phone.
The girl also agreed that online chat between her and the accused was "fairly flirty''. But to a suggestion she had volunteered "a booberific show'' - a topless image of herself sitting in front of the computer - she said it was the man's idea and he had been pressuring her to do it.
The 25-year-old accused man faces five charges arising from alleged sexual behaviour with the girl last year.
He denies twice indecently assaulting her, in July and August, travelling to the Dunedin Botanic Garden for the purpose of having sex with her after a period of sexual grooming, having sexual connection with a girl under 16 and procuring the girl to make indecent publications, namely photographs of herself posing naked.
He pleaded guilty to an associated charge of unlawfully possessing indecent publications, pictures of the girl posing in the nude.
His trial, before Judge John Macdonald and a jury, began in the Dunedin District Court today and is expected to take up to three days. The man, who has interim name suppression, is represented by counsel Louise Garthwaite while Richard Smith is prosecuting for the Crown.
Evidence from the man's partner was she went to the police last August after finding pictures of the girl on the man's phone. She had seen the girl's profile on facebook and was aware she was 15.
But the woman agreed, in cross-examination, the man had not tried to hide the fact he was having contact with the girl and chatting to her on the computer. He was open about the fact she was related to him, was 15, that he had gone to the movies with her and had met her father.
The Crown says the man struck up an internet-based friendship after contacting the girl on a social network last year. They chatted regularly online, exchanged cellphone numbers and texted each other. Almost from the beginning, the girl told the accused she was 15 and what high school she attended, Mr Smith told the jurors. The girl's personal information was clearly displayed on facebook.
But communications between the two very soon became mildly flirtatious with sexually explicit chat and she sent intimate photos of herself. She said she resisted doing that but provided the pictures after some persistence by the accused and "perhaps some assistance from him''. They met at the girl's father's home where the Crown says the accused kissed and groped the girl and tried to have sex with her before her father came home.
They later went to a movie together and the accused put his hand on her thigh. When he went to the Botanic Garden where the girl was doing her art, the accused was "hitting'' on her, groping her and and forcing himself on her, Mr Smith told the jurors. She moved away but the accused followed her, pulled her pants down and had sex with her.
After that incident the girl broke off any further contact.
The defence case is the accused backed away from the "flirty relationship'' once he realised the girl's age and identity. That was after the girl had sent nude pictures to him. But they agreed to meet, she invited him to her house to meet her father and they went to a movie together.
The accused denied there was any meeting at the gardens or any sexual contact, Ms Garthwaite said. She questioned the girl about her conflicting accounts of the alleged incident. The girl told police she did not arrange to meet the accused there but she told her boyfriend she had. She denied her boyfriend's account that she told him she had sex with the accused "because I wanted it and I asked for it''.
What she told the police was the truth although she agreed she had not immediately mentioned the accused having sex with her, the girl said. She denied making up the allegations.
