A teenager alleged that she had sexual intercourse with a 19-year-old man - when she was only 13 years old - yesterday in the Supreme Court.

The man, now 21, of no fixed abode and who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been charged with the indictable offence of unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl who was under the age of 14.

The incident was alleged to have occurred between August and September, 2001.

The teenage girl, now 15, took the stand yesterday and told the nine-woman three-man jury that she had sex with the man on four separate occasions.

She told the court that she and the accused became friends during the summer of 2001, and that she and a group of her friends had spent time with the man, camping, playing football and riding bicycles.

She said: "He asked me how old I was and when I told him 13, he didn't believe me - he said I looked older.

"But, I told him that I was telling the truth and that was my age."

The teenager claimed it was later in August when they first became intimate.

"Later that month, we had been outside of his house talking early in the day and he asked me to come back later," she said.

"I went back to his house at around midnight and we talked in the front room for around a half an hour.

"Then we began kissing, we took off our clothes and we had sex on the couch."

Crown counsel Charmaine Smith asked what happened before the intercourse, she said he put on a condom.

The teenager claimed in her evidence that the exact same thing happened on three following occasions.

However, defence lawyer Larry Mussenden said that in her statement given in Magistrates' Court during the Long Form Preliminary Inquiry, she claimed that on the third occasion the sexual act had taken place in her living room - not his.

She had trouble remembering until the court deposition was placed in front of her.

Mr. Mussenden claimed that during her initial statement on November 26, 2001, she had told Police officers that she had intercourse on five separate occasions.

In her evidence, given on the stand yesterday, she had claimed that they had only had sex on four occasions.

Mr. Mussenden was under the view that the girl's mother pressured her into making a statement and that she had made up the entire story. The teenager denied that.

Justice Archibald Warner explained that because the teenager had stated that she had had sex at her house previously and in yesterday's evidence claimed that she did not - and whether they had sex four or five times, did not prove that they did not have intercourse.

Mrs. Smith tried to ascertain how long was it between the first and second act, but the teenager could not specify whether it was a few days or a week.

Mrs. Smith also asked the girl how she felt during the time of her encounters and what did she think of it.

The teenager said she wondered whether it would last or not or would it just finish.

The case continues this morning in front of Justice Warner.