Child sex abuse trial: Girl, 15, had "equal relationship with alleged abuser"

THE defence lawyer for alleged child abuser Arshid Hussain say his relationship with one of the complainants — who he made pregnant when she was 15 — was “equal”.

Mr Stephen Uttley put the statement to the now 30-year-old woman in his cross-examination of her.

Mr Uttley said the two were in an equal relationship and she had a fiery temper in those days.

The woman said: “I did, yes, especially when Ash started beating me, the more bad things he did to me the more I became numb to it.

“I always tried to hit him back, I would never win, but I tried.”

Mr Uttley said they had been equal and Hussain was not domineering.

She answered: “He was an adult and I was a child, so no, I would not say we were equal at all.”

The alleged victim claims she first had sex with Arshid Hussain when she was 14 and he was 24, terminated one pregnancy by him when she was 14 and gave birth to his child when she was 15.

Mr Uttley said Hussain accepts they had a sexual relationship and that the child was his, but he claims he told him she was 18 when they met.

Mr Uttley said the complainant had already started to go off the rails before she met Hussain.

The woman, giving evidence in court, agreed that she had started drinking alcohol, smoking cannabis and hanging around on the streets before she met the defendant, who she referred to as Ash.

She added: “I knew his brother Bash before I met Ash.”

Mr Uttley said: “So you were being untruthful to your parents, experimenting with drink and drugs, staying out and you were going to nightclubs.

The woman answered: “I went to underage nightclubs, there was one called New York New York.

“I didn’t start going out to (adult) nightclubs until I met Ash.”

The woman said when she had first met Ash when she was 14 and he pulled up in his car, but her friend had told her to tell him she was 16 years old.

Mr Uttley said: “The first thing you agree you said to Mr Hussain is a lie.”

She answered: “Yes.”

The woman added: “But he knew a few hours later I wasn't 16.”

Hussain claims the pair met in a nightclub and she told him she was 18.

The woman said this was a lie.

She added: “I didn't tell him I was 18, I was 14, I didn’t even look 14, I looked 12.”

One of the charges Hussain faces in relation to the woman is anal rape, committed between 1999 and 2001.

The woman said she had never even heard of anal sex at the time and they had never discussed it but she remembered him doing it

Mr Uttley said: “He says it never happened, anal sex with you.

“When you were having a sexual relationship he still believed you were over 16.”

She answered: “He knew I was 14, my dad went to his house where his wife and all his family were and told him how old I were.

“He knew exactly how old I were, he used to pick me up from school.”

Mr Uttley said: “During the time you were at school you experimented with drug dealing.”

She said: “No, Ash got me into that, he got me doing a lot of criminal things, drugs, burglaries, he taught me how to drive, he would take me on armed robberies, he got me into a lot of fights with girls.”

The woman claims Hussain gave her a can of CS spray, which she used to spray in the face of another schoolgirl Hussain is alleged to have sexually abused.

She accepted she had been given a police caution for the incident in 2000, but said she lied to the police and said it was hairspray.

The woman told the court her violence was a way of release after Hussain had been violent towards her.

She said: “I had fights with my family, friends, girls I’d never met or knew before, I did get violent, my behaviour went completely out of control.”

The woman said her contact with Hussain faded for a while when he was sent to prison after “he stabbed someone 12 times with a screwdriver”.

But she claims he sent people to her home and made threats to kill her.

Hussain denies 29 offences, including rape and false imprisonment.

The trial continues.

 

 

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