A bus driver was yesterday acquitted of raping a girl in his bus after a magistrate declared that she lacked credibility and had also admitted to inventing serious abuse allegations against her family.

Joseph Chetcuti, who is 37-years-old but was 29 when he was alleged to have raped the 14-year-old girl, always protested his innocence and said he was just trying to help when she alleged that she was being beaten up by her father.

The two came to know one another on his bus when she sat near him and was very friendly, he said. She asked him to drop her off at a shelter and, before alighting, asked him for his mobile phone number.

From then on she would catch certain routes to make sure that at one point she would meet him. He added that they had met up once for a drink in Marsascala but insisted that nothing ever happened.

He said that it was only after the case began that he had realised what the girl was up to through the media when he found out that she used to run away from home many times.

The girl, who suffers from schizophrenia, claimed that it was after they drank at the bar that the rape happened.

The driver took her on his bus to Delimara. She would be wearing her school uniform whenever they met, she added. During the case, the girl’s father described her as a compulsive liar and very rebellious, adding that she had many mobile phone sim-cards and would be in contact with a lot of people. She had run away from home many times and invented allegations against him and her mother, her 75-year-old grandmother and even a therapist.

Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani said that after evaluating the girl as she was testifying, she concluded that the girl was not credible. She changed her version that the alleged sexual encounter was consensual by telling the police that he forced her to have sex.

The magistrate also pointed out that the girl had invented allegations against her close family and a therapist.

Lawyers Mark Vassallo and Chris Cardona appeared for Mr Chetcuti.