Murder-accused Ze Selassie admitted being "infatuated" with teenager Rhiana Moore and getting her pregnant but denied killing her when he gave evidence at Supreme Court.

Selassie, 33, admitted meeting 14-year-old Rhiana on the night in question "for sexual purposes," but insisted that he later took her home safely.

He stands accused of the premeditated murder of the teenager, who was stabbed to death last May.

He denies the charge, and elected to take the witness stand in his own defence yesterday.

Prosecutor Michael McColm put it to him: "You took her down to Blue Hole that night, didn't you, and you stabbed her 18 times.

"You did so to bring an end to her life and the life of that child, didn't you?

"To stop yourself going to jail over your relationship you had."

But Selassie replied: "That's a very ridiculous suggestion. That would put me in a worse position that I was already in."

He refuted several further suggestions from the prosecutor that he killed Rhiana.

However, when Mr. McColm said of his relationship with the teenager: "You just didn't care about this girl, did you? She was just a piece of meat to you, something to use for your sexual pleasure," Selassie admitted: "Now that I look back, yes."–Rhiana was around seven months pregnant with his child when her dead body was found in the water at Blue Hole Hill nature reserve in Hamilton Parish at 11.38 am on May 31, 2008. She'd gone missing around 9.20 p.m the previous night after leaving a youth group at the Radnor Road Christian Fellowship Church in the same parish.

In answer to questions from his lawyer John Perry QC, Selassie claimed he only had sex with Rhiana three or four times. On his version of events, she fell pregnant the first time, around December 2007, when he believed he took her virginity.

Selassie did not state how he and Rhiana met, although he explained that she was good friends with his girlfriend's younger sister and he'd known her for a year or so before her death.

Asked by his lawyer about his feelings for the young girl, he replied: "I began to care for her to the point that I thought it was love. But looking back, I could see that it was just an infatuation it was just raw sexual desire."

Selassie admitted initially wanting Rhiana to get rid of their baby because she was too young to have one and he did not want to go to prison for having sex with a minor. However, he insisted that he later accepted it was too late for her to have an abortion.

He told the jury he met the teenager after her youth group around 9.15 p.m. on the night in question. He claimed they spent an hour or so together, spending time in his car at the Botanical Gardens in Paget. He briefly broke down in tears as he told the jury he took her there for sex although he denied they had intercourse that night.

He claimed that as Rhiana was trying to retrieve a music CD from under the passenger seat of his car, and he tried to assist, the back of his head accidentally hit her face. He said this caused an injury near her eye that left her bleeding and made her cry. He said he gave her a rag to stem the bleeding and then took her home to Devonshire by 10.15 p.m. to 10.20 p.m. He explained he did not see her walk through the door as he could not see it from the road.

Selassie told the jury that after this he did not feel like going home, so he went for a drive around St. George's and Hamilton before returning home to St. David's, where he lived with his girlfriend and two-year-old son, at around 3.30 a.m. to 3.45 a.m.

He added that he got back up and left the house in his car around 6 to 6.30 a.m, taking the vehicle to get washed at the City Hall car park in Hamilton, before dumping a bag of his son's old clothes at the Tynes Bay Incinerator, where he was captured on security cameras.

He refuted suggestions from prosecutor Mr. McColm that he invented the incident where he accidentally hit Rhiana's face in his car as an excuse for the fact that her blood was later found in the vehicle.

Prosecutors claim witness sightings show Selassie speeding in his car out of Ferry Reach in St. George's on the night in question and later having an argument with someone in a boatyard in St. David's, yelling "what are you doing to me Rhi?"

Selassie agreed the first sighting may have been him, claiming: "I speed all the time, whether I'm in a hurry or not" but denied visiting the St. David's boatyard.

Prosecution witnesses have also told the trial that Rhiana's cell phone sent messages replying to questions about her whereabouts after her disappearance. These stated she was coming home soon.

Selassie yesterday denied Mr. McColm's suggestion that he took the teenager's phone from her that night and used it to text people who were looking for her. He also scotched the suggestion that he dumped her phone, plus her jacket and shoes at the Tynes Bay Incinerator the next morning.

However, he did admit lying to Rhiana's mother, Juliann Moore, when he spoke to her by telephone the morning after Rhiana's disappearance, when he told her he'd not heard from Rhiana since the week before. Selassie said Mrs. Moore knew they were "associating" but "not sexually" and he wanted to distract her from this possibility.

He agreed that text messages between them read to the jury by a detective last week showed he was "pretty insistent" when asking Rhiana to have sex with him, and he'd once suggested having a "threesome" with another female.

When asked by the prosecutor why he continued the relationship after Rhiana fell pregnant, he responded: "How I looked at it was, 'well, I'm going to prison for having sex with her. I may as well get as much sex out of this as possible'."

Some of the text messages appeared to suggest that Selassie gave Rhiana pills and drinks in a bid to rid her of her unborn child, some of which made her feel dizzy.

Yesterday, the defendant claimed he'd only given the teenager vitamin pills and juice drinks, and denied giving her alcohol.

However, he admitted: "I just made her believe that these pills or liquids, alongside sex, would get rid of the baby which is really ridiculous because everyone knows sex does not get rid of a baby. But she did, and I used that to my advantage to get sex."

Selassie was the last witness in the case, with closing speeches expected from the lawyers today.

This is what murder-accused Ze Selassie, 33, told the Supreme Court jury yesterday about his relationship with 14-year-old victim Rhiana Moore:

Defence lawyer John Perry QC: Did you kill Rhiana Moore?

Ze Selassie: No sir.

Mr. Perry: You knew her before her death, that's right?

Selassie: That's true sir.

Mr. Perry: How long had you known her before her death?

Selassie: A year or more. Possibly two years.

Mr. Perry: You accept that you had a sexual relationship with her?

Selassie: Yes I do.

Mr. Perry: You were aware of her age, were you not?

Selassie: Yes I was.

Mr. Perry: Do you accept that you having a sexual relationship with her was disgraceful behaviour, being sexually involved with a girl under age?

Selassie: Yes sir.

Mr. Perry: Do you accept that you are the father of Rhiana's unborn child?

Selassie: Yes sir.

Mr. Perry: What were your feelings about Rhiana?

Selassie: Well, I was sexually attracted to her.

Mr. Perry: Did you love her?

Selassie: I began to care for her to the point that I thought it was love. But looking back, I could see that it was just an infatuation it was just raw sexual desire.

Mr. Perry: Did you want to get rid of the baby?

Selassie: Initially, yes.

Mr. Perry: Why?

Selassie: Three reasons; I didn't want to go to prison over the situation, I was not in a position to really take care of the child and it was unfair for Rhiana to have to raise a child at her age.

Mr. Perry: Did there come a time when that desire to get rid of the child changed?

Selassie: Well yes, like around March when I bought a pregnancy test for her and she told me that she was (pregnant) and we spoke and she told me that she'd misled me regarding having periods before then. I realised she'd gone past the first trimester and it was not possible to get rid of the baby any more.

Mr. Perry: Did you kill her to get rid of the baby?

Selassie: No sir.