Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1069175
5 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 9 JANUARY 2019 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 On that last occasion, she had been in bed with her two younger cousins asleep on her arm. The accused was playing a Playstation game, waiting for a phone call. Then he got into bed and covered himself with the blanket. "He raised his knee and made a triangle with the blan- ket. Then he held my hand and I started to resist. The children were awake. He held my hand again and tapped it. That was a sign he had made over the years for me to touch his private parts. I tried to re- sist as much as I could with- out alerting the children. Then he put my hand on his genitals, under his clothes. I left my hand there and he started tapping on my hand to move it up and down but I did nothing. After five to 10 minutes he received the phone call he was waiting for. I pulled my hand back and he dressed and left." The witness then described how she was raped in the washroom. "He had bent me over the washing machine, pulled down my shorts and panty and put his private part inside my vagina. I said 'ouch' and he got scared of the noise I was making. I was ten. He was 17." The accused had tried to have sex with the child again on another occasion but she said she hadn't allowed him to. "I swear oath upon oath that this happened. There were people who said that I was making it up but it's true." Although no oral sex took place, the accused would try to get the girl to do it, she said. He would ask her to masturbate him, from when she was aged eight till the age of 11 or 12, she said. The girl said she wasn't close to her parents and rather than speak to them, she would open up to her aunt. Howev- er, she hadn't told her about the accused as she wouldn't believe her, as in fact hap- pened. The girl said she had summoned the courage to come forward thanks to her current boyfriend. "At age 13, 14 ,15 I would cry at night, I'd put my face in the pillow so no one would hear me. Naturally, the body would enjoy these things but my mind didn't," said the girl, candidly. She would hide the fact that he abused her, she said, and the effort had drained her mentally and depressed her, she said. "I'd cry a lot. I faked a smile for seven years," she said. "I have a lot of guilt. My self-esteem is very low. I hate my body." Defence questions claim of low self esteem Under cross-examination, it was suggested that the fact the girl enjoyed dancing meant that she might not have had such a low self-esteem at the time. "Dancing would allevi- ate my sadness for an hour," she replied. Defence lawyer Franco Debono asked why her Fa- cebook profile picture was of her drinking a cocktail through a straw, eyes closed with the caption. "I've got a good heart. But this mouth…" Despite objections from the prosecution, the court asked the girl to explain. "I have a good heart, but when I'm an- gry I can say some things and can be sassy." She was pouting and pre- tending to drink the cocktail, she said. This didn't seem compatible with low self es- teem, observed Debono's ac- companying lawyer Marion Camilleri. "I need to have make up and I'd take a hun- dred pictures before I post one," said the girl. "I was hap- py dancing. I would put eve- rything out of my mind and dance to the music...I'm not someone who wants to be sad 24/7. I want to be happy." Camilleri asked why she hadn't told the magistrate about the time that she had made advances to the ac- cused. The girl said she was under the impression that she had. "Why doesn't any- one from your family believe you?" asked the lawyer, but the girl only replied that "they ostracised us because they didn't believe me." The defence lawyer asked her final question. "You were face down. How do you know that it was his penis that pen- etrated you?" "I don't know, it was bigger than his finger," she replied. Lawyers Franco Debono, Marion Camilleri and Anita Giordmaina are defending the accused. Lawyers Matthew Xuereb, Nadia Attard and Charles Mercieca from the Office of the Attorney General are prosecuting. The trial continues. 'I hate my body', victim of alleged rape tells court of lasting effects of abuse NEWS