Foday Goddard, a mute, charged with the offence of rape last Thursday, March 4th opened his defence through the aid of an interpreter at the Special Criminal Court presided over by Justice Moses Richards in Banjul. 
 
The accused is alleged to have had an unlawful sexual intercourse with a 10-year-old girl on the 14th of June 2009 at Abuko in the Kanifing Municipality. The accused told the court that he knows the victim, whom he said frequents his compound and was his younger sister's playmate. He added that he had been avoiding the 10-year-old girl each time she came to their compound and that he even complained to her mother, but the mother said nothing.

According to the accused, on the day in question he went to work at a sawmill and denied having any affair with the victim, because he returned home late in the day around 7:30pm. He however revealed that he was brewing the Chinese green tea on the day of the incident, at about 2.00pm, when the girl came to the compound and started fumbling with him and he asked her to get out of the compound.
 
Edu Gomez, counsel for the accused, warned the accused to tell the court the truth and to stop contradicting himself as his evidence will either implicate him or extricate him. He then read the evidence of the victim to the accused, saying the victim said that on the said day, she went to the compound of the accused to play but she did not meet anybody there and the accused took her into his room, knocked her on the bed and forcefully act. The younger sister of the accused then came and knocked at the door and the victim got up and blood came out from her private part.
 
The accused was confronted but he denied having sex with the victim. Responding to cross-examination by DDPP Mikailu Abdoulali, the accused admitted seeing the victim on the 14th of June 2009 and denied having sex with the victim. He acknowledged making a statement at the police station and described the statement of his younger sister as not true. The case was adjourned for continuation.