A man who saved a girl from a life of sexual and physical abuse and ended up marrying her, was taken to court to face charges of having himself had sex with her when she was not yet 18. The man, however, was let off the hook when the girl told the court how he had saved her from a terrible life and how their sexual relationship was consensual.

The court heard that the girl started being sexually abused by her mother's partner when she was just nine years old. The sexual abuse increased over time and eventually the girl also started being physically assaulted.

In 2005, the girl, now a teenager, started going out with the accused, who was barely 18. He then started working in the girl's family business - a bakery.

At one time, the mother's partner started hitting the girl on the head in the presence of her boyfriend. On another occasion he chased her, pushed her to the floor and kicked her until her mother intervened.

But when the girl told her mother that she was going to go to the police, the mother herself started beating her up.

In her evidence to the court, the girl said that she fell in love with her boyfriend and told him everything that her mother's partner did to her.

She also said she had sexual relations with her boyfriend some three times before turning 18, but it was 'completely consensual'.

She said that thanks to his help, she was able to run away from home, seek professional help from Apogg and move into sheltered accommodation. She then refused to speak to her mother.

The accused, in his evidence, recounted the abuse which his girlfriend had suffered, including beatings with a wooden plan and also verbal abuse. 

On one occasion, when he tried to defend her, the man attacked him with a penknife and matters did not get worse because the girlfriend's mother and a brother intervened.

He had taken the girlfriend to Appogg for her safety, he told the court.

Giving her version, the mother said she had known her partner for many years. She filed a police report against her daughter's boyfriend because, she said, he had abused her.

When asked why she had not reported her own partner to the police, she said that she believed her denials.

Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani (who was this morning made a judge) said there was no doubt that the relationship between the accused and his girlfriend was consensual, with the girl even wanting sex out of fear that she would lose her virginity by being raped by her mother's partner.

Furthermore, the girl, upon turning 18, had strongly insisted with the court that proceedings against her then boyfriend, now her husband, should be extinguished.

The court said the sexual relationship took place inside  a garage and the accused could not be found guilty of offending private morals.

The court said that in view of the circumstances, it was declaring the proceedings extinguished.

(Names were not revealed in order to protect the privacy of the victim)