A schoolgirl has described how she was repeatedly molested by an adult man who was close to her family.

The child told the Supreme Court yesterday that she had known the accused since she was four and that he started touching her inappropriately in 2011, when she was 11.

The accused, 34, denies six charges of sexual exploitation by a person in a position of trust.

Neither he nor the child can be named for legal reasons.

The girl, now 15, told the jury he first touched her in May, 2011 at her home. She said they were playing a computer game when he “asked if I wanted a massage”.

“He started to give me a massage on my shoulders then he asked me to lay down,” she said. “Then he started to massage my legs and started to travel up my leg.”

She then described how he touched her inappropriately and “invaded my personal space”.

Prosecutor Karen King asked her what she said and how she felt.

“I didn’t say anything,” she replied. “I was uncomfortable, it was weird and I wasn’t expecting it. It lasted for five or ten minutes.”

The girl went on to describe an incident about a week later when the accused asked her to exercise with him and touched her while helping her complete push-ups.

Ms King then asked her about a night in January last year.

She told how the accused woke her in the middle of the night by touching her. Her mother was away and he was looking after her.

“I was so close to him. It had never happened before, I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I didn’t say anything, I just lay there and pretended to be asleep.”

Visibly upset and squeezing a stress ball, the child had to be asked by Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons to speak up.

She went on to tell the jury that the accused touched her again in August and September last year.

The girl started sobbing in the witness box as she described what happened on September 24.

“I remember the day because he hurt me and I told my mother the next day,” she said.

Judge Simmons allowed the girl to compose herself before questioning continued. Four members of the jury were also in tears as she spoke.

“I was shocked, it hurt,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting him to do that. I just lay there, I didn’t know what else to do.

“It lasted three hours. I was really upset about it. I was crying because it hurt and I was really uncomfortable.”

The girl told her mother what had been happening the next morning, after she started crying during the drive to school.

“I was bleeding and I didn’t know what it was,” she told the jury. “My mother was driving and I started to cry because I was upset.

“She pulled over and I told her why I was crying. She was upset and started crying too.”

The girl told the jury she had not told anyone about the incidents because she did not want to upset her family and because she had loved the accused.

“I didn’t want him to get into trouble, I didn’t want him to go to jail,” she said. “I loved him before this started to happen.”

“But you didn’t want this to continue happening?” asked Ms King.

“No,” the girl replied.

Defence lawyer Elizabeth Christopher highlighted an inconsistency between the girl’s statement to the police and what she said in court.

“How do you explain this contradiction?” asked Ms Christopher. “A slip up? A lie?”

“I was nervous,” the girl said. “I wouldn’t call it a lie, it was a slip up.”

Ms Christopher went on: “It’s important that you try to match what you told the police, is that correct? That you tell this jury the same story you told the police?”

“It’s the truth so I don’t need to change it, there’s no reason to change it,” the girl replied.

Ms Christopher then confirmed that the defendant had been in the girl’s life from an early age but that he was not around consistently.

She asked the girl if this made her angry and whether she had wanted more of the accused’s attention.

“Is it correct that at one stage you engaged in cutting yourself for attention?” asked Ms Christopher. “You took what can be described as an unusual step to get attention?”

The girl agreed and admitted she had seen a therapist about her behaviour.

“My mother thought I had ADHD and wanted to get me checked,” she said. “I went to the therapist and had about two sessions.” Ms Christopher then asked the girl if she had a tendency to tell lies.

“Not since I was 11,” she replied. “When I was in middle school.”

Ms Christopher then asked the girl if it was correct that when she told her mother she had been touched inappropriately, she initially did not say who by. She agreed.

The defence lawyer then suggested that she went to school after telling her mother about being touched to have time to decide what to say.

‘That’s incorrect,” the girl said.

Ms Christopher went on to quiz the girl about the defendant massaging her and said she had asked him to do so because her heavy schoolbag left her with knots in her shoulders, which the girl denied.

“At no point did he rub your legs or any other part of your body apart from your back,” the lawyer said. “At no stage did he ask you to lay down.”

“That’s incorrect,” the girl replied.

The trial continues.