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Mother tells of girl’s distress after alleged sexual assault

The mother of a five-year-old alleged sexual assault victim recalled her child was “wide-eyed” and “upset” moments after she was said to have been attacked by a stranger.The woman told a Supreme Court jury yesterday about the events that transpired one morning last July, when her daughter was allegedly sexually assaulted.A man, said to be a client of Mid Atlantic Wellness Institute, faces trial for two charges of sexual exploitation of a young person.He cannot be named for legal reasons and has denied the allegations. He is represented by lawyer Ken Savoury.Yesterday the girl’s mother said she took her eyes off her two children and their cousin for only a few minutes to care for an infant she was baby sitting.As she was feeding the baby inside her home, she continued to check up on the children who were riding their bikes and playing on a swing set outside.The woman said she could see the children from both her bedroom and living room windows.When checking on them a third time she said she noticed her five-year-old daughter was not with the others. She yelled to find out her daughter’s whereabouts.“I went back to the kitchen and gathered up the baby and I was going to see where [my five-year-old] had went, but by the time I had gathered up the baby they were coming up the steps, all three of them.”“[My five-year-old] was quite wide-eyed and just staring at me and [her cousin] was very shaken up by the time she got at the top of the steps.“She was just saying ‘Mom, mom’. She was upset. She told me something. I was in the kitchen. I called the Police.”According to her testimony, four officers arrived to her home within ten minutes.She said: “She just sat on the couch for a few minutes and she just seemed to need something to do so she sat on the floor and started doing a puzzle.”The woman accompanied her daughter to the hospital where her daughter was examined by a nurse.Detective Constable Dionne Williams, attached to the Vulnerable Persons Unit, said she helped the family through the process.Det Con Williams said she interviewed the young girl on two occasions, including once to obtain a further description of the perpetrator.She said she was also part of a team sent to the defendant’s house to arrest him in connection with the incident.On Tuesday, DNA expert Candy Zuleger, said testing of underwear taken from the young victim was positive for the defendant’s DNA.She also said swabs taken from the child’s private areas and sent to the lab in Florida, United States also showed the accused was the “major DNA donor”.Yesterday during cross examination Mr Savoury claimed that some of the results were “not reliable” as they only identified six markers out of a possible 15, that showed strong presence of the defendant’s DNA.He also claimed there was a “fundamental error” in the examination of one particular swab, which didn’t have a positive reading for the defendant’s semen or saliva.Ms Zuleger said there were two samples taken from the same area and said: “But I just do not have as strong DNA data as I have for the other sample”.Prosector Robert Welling will continue his case this morning before Chief Justice Richard Ground.