A 33-year-old Pembroke man took the stand yesterday in Supreme Court in an attempt to dispel allegations he had sex with a 13-year-old girl last summer.

The man - who cannot be named for legal reasons - is on trial for two charges related to sex with a juvenile - unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under 14 and unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl 14, but under 16.

The girl is now 15-years-old and is a schoolmate of the man's children.

She claims that she and the accused man had sex and oral sex a number of times while she was 13 and again after her 14th birthday.

Her best friend testified this week, that she was aware of the illicit relationship, had seen the two French-kissing and claimed the man told her he loved and wanted to marry the young teen.

The man's lawyer - Elizabeth Christopher - suggested earlier this week that the man is a homosexual and, yesterday, he claimed his only relationship with the girl was one of offering to listen to her problems.

The man said that after the two met and realised they were cousins at a wedding last June, she asked him if she could call him when she needed to talk.

The man said it was his nature to look out for young people, so he agreed to her request.

Other than communicating by phone and pager, the man claimed the only time he arranged to meet the girl in person was when he coaxed her to meet with a professional counsellor.

Under cross-examination earlier this week, the girl admitted she had many problems which she discussed with the accused - including that she is a "ritual cutter".

Ritual cutting is when a person wilfully cuts or wounds oneself out of anger, the jury heard.

While the girl admitted she cut herself in this way, she stood firm in her claim that she and the accused had a sexual relationship.

She told the court she and the man went to numerous "quiet spots" to have sex including Astwood Park and Gibbs Hill Lighthouse over the course of last July through last September.

In explaining the last occasion the two are alleged to have had sex, she told the court: "At this point, we had got a lot closer. I confided in him about personal problems I was going through and I trusted him. I was comfortable with him."

She also testified that the two were in contact regularly and that the man often told her he loved her.

She said that in addition to arranging to speak and meet by paging each other, the two would page each other "codes" to say they were thinking of each other.

Yesterday, the man admitted these pages had taken place, but claimed the codes did not mean the things the girl had claimed.

Before Crown counsels Anthony Blackman and Oonagh Vaucrosson closed their case yesterday afternoon, the court heard from Police officers who investigated the case.

Police officers said that in their early interviews with him, the accused man denied using his pager outside work, denied knowing the young girl or her age and denied that he gave her a pager.

Documents showing the man arranged for a pager service and phone records of the communication between he and the young girl were entered into evidence this week before Acting Justice Charles-Etta Simmons.

Yesterday the man said he had not given the girl the pager - as she had testified earlier - but had arranged for pager service for her because she was too young to do so.

He denied the claim by the girl's best friend that she saw the two French kissing before the girl went to see the counsellor on the first occasion.

The man claimed that the location where this kiss is alleged to have taken place is in full view of offices and a gym.

"I'd have to be an idiot to stand up in the middle of nowhere kissing a 13-year-old girl," he said. "To fully answer your question, it did not happen."