Man accused of raping 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton had arrived in UK four months earlier

Giving evidence from the dock today, Mulakhil said he believed the girl when he asked her age and she told him she was 19.

He denied he led her away down the cul-de-sac where the offences are alleged to have occurred, telling jurors: “She was insisting she wanted to come to my house.

“I was trying to tell her it was not possible.”

He told the court it was intention to go to his friend’s home when he walked to a grassy area on an estate in Nuneaton.

He said: “Wherever I was walking she was following me around, so when I got to the grassy area I sat down.

“For a few minutes we sat together and I was telling her you should go back to your home and your mother, but she was not listening.

“After a few moments she started touching me.”

Mulakhil admitted oral rape in November last year, but denies two other counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault, child abduction and taking indecent images of a child.

The admitted rape and the sexual offences denied by Mulakhil are all said to have occurred during a “window” of one hour and 18 minutes in which he and the 12-year-old were not seen on CCTV.