Despite intense cross examination, a 13-year-old girl yesterday maintained her father removed her underwear and rubbed himself against her groin.

Her evidence came during the third day of the Supreme Court trial of a 40-year-old Devonshire man accused of sexually exploiting his daughter and attempted incest.

The father of three, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, claims nothing improper happened on April 3, 1996 when he woke his child up at 2.30 a.m. to rub his neck and back.

The father and daughter made their way to his bedroom where the youngster rubbed him down. At issue is what happened during the time the two were in the bedroom.

Yesterday under cross examination by defence lawyer Elizabeth Christopher, the girl, who was age 11 at the time of the alleged incident, insisted her father made sexual advances towards her.

The girl claimed her father rubbed himself against her groin and tried to get her to touch his penis.

She denied suggestions that she made up the story in hope that she would be allowed to live with her mother.

But she admitted that she did want to go live with her mother who was separated from her father at the time of the alleged incident.

She said she would have done "anything'' to return to her mother.

The six-man, six-woman jury also heard from the child's father who took the stand in his own defence.

The man testified that his daughter was upset about the separation between he and his common-law wife of almost 25 years.

And he defended his decision to awaken his daughter during the early hours of the morning to rub his neck and back in his bedroom.

"The time was 2.30 a.m. It looks bad, I know that,'' he admitted. "But what you must realise is that it wasn't uncommon. I would come home at three or four in the morning and find them (mother and daughter) in bed. Her mother would go and get food prepared for me. We had that type of a relationship.

"If I came home at three or four in the morning her mother would rub me down,'' he added.

But he admitted he would send his daughter into her bed if he came home at a late hour.

"If (the girl) was sleeping in the bed we would send her to her bed,'' he said.

The man claimed that after his daughter rubbed his neck and back on the night in question she went to the bathroom.

He said that when she returned, the two laid down on the bed for about five minutes.

"I do remember putting my arm around her,'' he recalled. "I might have kissed her on the cheek.'' The man denied all the accusations against him and argued that other people put words into his daughter's mouth.

"I'm here because she really wanted to be back with her mother,'' he said.

"Some of these words were put into her mouth.'' The trial continues today before Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux. Crown Counsel Charlene Scott is prosecuting.