A teenage girl yesterday told a court that her mother’s partner had held a knife to her throat during an argument.

However, the 44-year-old man, who is being charged with threatening the girl and unlawfully carrying a knife in his car, said it was the girl who had threatened to kill him.

Police Inspector Jeanne Farrugia said the incident occurred in September. The girl was uninjured and refused to be medically examined.

The police found a knife in the man’s car and the mother then handed over another knife and a landline telephone with a slashed cable.

The girl, who is living in a shelter for victims of domestic violence, said the man constantly enquired about her in phone calls to her mother. On that day, she had answered the phone and told him to come to her mother’s place.

There, he grabbed her by the neck and held a knife to her throat.

On the witness stand, the mother accused the man of selling her daughter into prostitution. She testified that neither her partner nor her daughter had touched the knife. The magistrate pointed out that the daughter had just said the accused put a knife to her throat.

“Do you think I’d let him do this to her?” the mother replied, recalling that the girl had spoken to him rudely in an argument over a mobile phone. He then fetched a knife from the kitchen, placed it on the bed and told her to go ahead and stab him.

Testifying, the accused said he did that because she had threatened to kill him.