The case against a young man accused of inappropriate contact with his four-year-old niece rests on his confession to police.
A trial for the 22-year-old Maple Ridge man began Wednesday in Port Coquitlam Provincial Court with Crown claiming that he revealed the encounter while being questioned by investigators.
“Crown alleges that the accused admits to being in the bathtub and having the child touch him inappropriately,” Crown prosecutor Gail Barnes said just before a video recording of the man’s interview with police was played for the court.
The man is not being named to protect the identity of the girl, who is his sister’s daughter.
He has pleaded not guilty to one count each of invitation to sexual touching and sexual interference.
The court heard that the girl’s parents are not together and she revealed, while staying with her father in February 2013, that she had bathed with her uncle.
The father and her step-mother contacted police, who eventually brought her uncle in for questioning.
The man came to the Ridge Meadows RCMP detachment voluntarily and was arrested.
The young man did not consult a lawyer, although police advised him of his rights and told him he could contact one via a free telephone service.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk to a lawyer?,” Const. Drew Hobbs asked in the video.
“In my eyes, there’s no point,” the man replied.
Const. Hobbs went on to ask the man if he knew what the charges meant.
The man told Hobbs he didn’t touch the girl.
“What did she say to you guys?” he asked.
Crown intends to call the girl’s father and step-mother as witnesses, but told the court the girl will not be testifying.
“It’s primarily a statement case,” said Barnes.