Remember me
A 12-year-old girl told police an Afghan migrant wanted to take her to train station by taxi after he abducted and raped her on a grassy area 'on an estate'.
Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, is on trial accused of targeting the child before raping and sexually assaulting her on a summer's evening last year.
Prosecutors also allege the girl was strangled by Mulakhil's friend and fellow Afghan Mohammad Kabir, who is accused of intending to take her away for a sexual purpose.
Giving evidence in his defence this afternoon, Mulakhil told jurors he had arrived in the UK for four months before the girl was raped last July.
He told jurors he had made an application 'for an immigration case....regarding the problems I have had in Afghanistan.'
Giving evidence through a Dari interpretor, he said he had been in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, where the child victim was attacked, for one-and-a-half months by the time of the incident, after he was 'placed' in the town.
Asked by his barrister Marcus Harry how long he had known Kabir by the time of the incident, he said: 'Approximately ten to 15 days' but said the pair did not live together.
Earlier this morning, jurors were played police bodycam footage showing the moment officers were called to the girl by an adult known to her following the alleged rape.
A screen grab taken from CCTV of Ahmad Mulakhil (front) and Mohammad Kabir (back), seen in a supermarket a day after the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton
Ahmad Mulakhil and Mohammad Kabir seen by the park after the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton
During the 12-minute clip shown to Warwick Crown Court, the girl told how the men 'were saying they were going to kidnap me to each other' when she encountered them on a bridge in the town.
She ran off but later came across Mulakhil on a housing estate, where there encounter was filmed on a doorbell camera.
Mulakhil today told jurors he asked the girl how old she was and she said she was 19, which he believed.
The court has heard the girl was then later sexually attacked on a grassy area in a nearby street.
But Mulakhil claimed his victim followed him to the grassy spot, where he told jurors he 'told her she should go home to her mother but she was not taking it.'
He then claimed the girl had initiated sexual contact, which he said lasted up to five seconds.
The girl was later found 'distressed' and alone in a nearby park after the attack, the court heard.
On the police bodycam footage, the girl told how her attacker had 'tried to strip me' during the sexual assault, which she said had taken place 'on an estate'.
Doorbell camera footage played to jurors shows Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, asking the 12-year-old girl 'how old are you?'
The images of Mohammad and Ahmad were part of a time-line video presentation played to jurors at Warwick Crown Court on Friday
She also said on the footage: 'He was about to get me in a taxi. He said he was going to get a taxi, he was going to get me in the taxi and take me to the train station, like (to) Birmingham or London.'
Earlier today, Prosecutor Daniel Oscroft also read a translated transcript of a phone call Kabir made to an interpreter during police efforts to communicate with him after his arrest.
The court heard Kabir told the interpreter: 'The girl came, she went with my friend.
'I told her 'don't come to me, please go away, don't come closer'.
'Tell them (the police) to check the camera. Tell them that my heart is exploding. I am brought in here innocently.'
In a videotaped statement previously shown to the court, the girl told how she first saw the two defendants in a nearby park, when they stared at her and 24-year-old Kabir pulled 'sexual faces'.
'They were asking my age, I said I was 12. They said they didn't care,' she said. The girl said Kabir then tried to strangle her. 'I thought I was going to die because I couldn't breathe,' she added.
She ran off but later came across Mulakhil on a housing estate and he told her to go with him. 'We got behind a shed thing,' she said.
Warwick Crown Court has been told the defendants 'targeted' the child and Kabir had tried to take her away 'for some sexual purpose'
Opening the case last week, Mr Oscroft told the court the pair 'targeted' the child and Kabir had tried to take her away 'for some sexual purpose'.
Mulakhil was said to have laughed and taken photographs as he raped the girl.
He told detectives that he thought the girl was in her early 20s.
Assisted by an interpreter in his two police interviews, he said that kissing and sexual activity between himself and the victim 'was her desire that she wanted'.
When asked if he understood that someone aged 12 cannot legally consent to sex, the court heard Mulakhil answered: 'It's understandable - no one will have sex with a 12-year-old.'
Mulakhil, of no fixed address, admits one count of rape. He denies two other counts of rape, abducting a child, two counts of sexual assault and taking indecent photographs of a child.
Kabir, of no fixed address, denies strangulation and intent to commit a sexual offence.
The court heard Mulakhil's DNA was found on the girl and indecent images of him and the girl were on his phone.
The trial continues.