A 49-year-old man from Cospicua was this morning acquitted of defiling a 16-year-old girl.

The man was also cleared of violent indecent assault and of participating in sexual acts with the girl.

The court heard that in May 2011 the girl’s mother filed a police report claiming that her daughter had been sexually abused by this man. She said she realised that something was wrong because the girl was all of a sudden having a lot of money.

The girl testified that the sex was consensual and that the man used to buy her mobile phones. She said he had given her five phones in a year to have sex with her.

During the hearing, the mother denied having a relationship with the man who insisted his relationship was with the mother and not the daughter.

He said he used to give the mother money and trouble started when he had no more money to give.

The girl, he said, had also threatened him to come up with more money.

The man said that he filmed himself having sex with the mother using a security camera and kept the footage because she was threatening him.

The mother’s sister confirmed that the man had a relationship with her sister and said the girl had told her that the mother threatened to kick her out of the house if she did not make the false allegations against the man.

In her decision, magistrate Audrey Demicoli noted that the woman had filed several reports with the police on different people, always alleging sexual abuse of her children.

This led the court to suspect that the woman used this weapon as a tool when she had issues with someone.

Lawyers Andy Ellul and Vince Micallef represented the man.