Man accused of sexually assaulting 11-year-old he met on dating app tells jury he didn't know she was underage
WARNING: This story contains details of child sexual abuse.
A man on trial for sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl has insisted he thought she was "a petite 19-year-old".
Shegu Charles Bobb, 27, is facing a jury trial in the ACT Supreme Court for alleged sexual offences against the 11-year-old in February 2020.
The pair met on a dating platform called Badoo when he was 21.
During his cross examination, Mr Bobb said he thought the girl's small size and weight could have been due to an eating disorder and not because she was lying about her age.
"I just thought she was a petite 19-year-old."
Prosecutor Marcus Dyason pointed to inconsistencies in Mr Bobb's continued denials that he knew she was 11, and not 19.
He suggested to Mr Bobb that when he sent the message "… can't believe you are that young" he "understood [he] was sending a message to an 11-year-old".
Mr Bobb denied that.
He said he had never encountered people lying about their age on online dating platforms, and that he had believed the girl was the age on her profile.
But during Mr Dyason's questioning, Mr Bobb admitted he had previously lied about his own birth date in order to gain access to the dating platforms in 2014 and 2015.
"So you do have experience of people lying about their age to get access to an 18 plus site when they aren't 18," Mr Dyason said.
"Yes," Mr Bobb replied.
Mr Bobb said he would have created those accounts with friends "for sh**s and gig[gle]s".
Details of messages exchanged between Mr Bobb and the girl in the lead up to the alleged assaults were also read to the court.
When asked why he had sent the message "how old are you" on Saturday February 22 while he was waiting in the car outside the girl's house, Mr Bobb said it was because he was surprised by how sexually "up front" their conversation was for someone who was 19.
He agreed their plan was to have sex in his car, despite what he described as a "fairly huge age gap" due to their difference in life experience.
They had exchanged explicit images and the girl had asked Mr Bobb to explain step-by-step the plan for their sexual encounter.
But when the girl did not come outside to meet Mr Bobb on the Saturday, he said he drove home and continued messaging her that evening.
The messages read out to the jury detailed their arrangements to meet the following day to have sex in the car at a location where they would not be caught.
Mr Bobb said because he was black, he believed if the girl's parents or neighbours saw him in the area there would be suspicion, hence the plan to drive away from sight.
When the girl messaged she was "scared" Mr Bobb said he replied "up to you" because he wanted to reassure her.
"I wasn't forcing her," he said.
He said he had met the girl near her home and she entered the car — which he was borrowing from his neighbour.
During the drive, the girl allegedly "buried her head in her phone" and communicated by messaging on the Badoo app instead of verbally.
Mr Bobb told the court he thought this was weird.
He drove to a car park in Mount Stromlo where Mr Bobb said he told the girl to "get in the back", which is when many of the alleged offences occurred.
He said he stopped when his phone began buzzing with notifications from the girl.
"I verbally asked her, 'Can I touch you?' She nodded," he said.
"My phone started buzzing … I looked at my phone and that's when I saw her texting, 'I can't, I can't'."
Mr Bobb denied accusations that he had raped her, and that he threatened to kill her and her family.
He said he let her out of the car and later texted her an apology because he "felt like [he] had scared her".
"I was not apologising for any of the things she's now accusing me of, the sexual act that never happened.
"Back then I guess I was just dumb and doing stuff, but I wouldn't go as far as doing this."
The jury is expected to begin deliberations later in the week.
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