Girl, 7, too 'scared' to tell about alleged sexual abuse

Footage of the girl, who is one of two children 65-year-old Martin Collins is alleged to have sexually assaulted, was played to jurors at Mr Collins’s trial this morning.

The defendant, of Lower Henley Road, is facing 14 counts of sexual abuse -- all of which he denies.

On day three of his trial, interviews of the seven-year-old girl recorded last year were played to the court.

READ MORE: Woman describes moment she found out alleged abuser was charged

In the footage, the girl tells a police officer that Mr Collins “rubbed” her chest and her genitals on three consecutive days over the 2019/2020 New Year period.

The court heard how the rubbing was “hard” and “rough”.

On the first occasions, the court heard Mr Collins touched the girl while she was sitting on his lap on a sofa in his house.

Following this, she moved to another sofa as then “he couldn’t rub me anymore”, the girl said.

The girl described the touching as “not very nice” and it made her “not very happy”.

On a day early in January 2020, the girl claimed Mr Collins tried to pull her tights back as he touched her genitals.

READ MORE: Child sex abuse trial delayed after jury members say they are too cold to sit in court

Asked why she did not tell anyone about the touching immediately after the alleged incidents, the girl said: “I was scared.

“I do not know what I was scared of, I just didn’t want to tell.”

The girl eventually told her mother of the alleged abuse in the days afterwards.

In an interview recorded later last year, defence counsel Lyall Thompson asked the girl if what she had told her mother ‘wasn’t true’.

The girl responded denying she had invented the alleged abuse.

The jury heard the girl’s interview at Reading Crown Court on Wednesday, April 21.

The trial continues.

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