A BRACKNELL man has pleaded not guilty to maintaining a sexual relationship with a minor.
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Adrian John Pryer, 50, is accused of having sex numerous times with a girl aged about 12 in the late '80s.
In his opening address in the Supreme Court in Launceston yesterday, Crown prosecutor Peter Sherriff said the alleged victim, who cannot be identified, could clearly remember six occasions when sexual activity occurred.
This included at Mr Pryer's parents' home at West Launceston, an abandoned house at Duck Reach and in a car parked near the Silverdome at Prospect.
Defence counsel Evan Hughes said these were the hardest cases for juries to decide, urging members to ``decide the case both impartially and according to the evidence''.
Mr Hughes said after hearing the evidence of the alleged victim and another Crown witness the jury members would be left with ``significant and substantial contradictions that will trouble you''.
He said Mr Pryer would give evidence that he never engaged in sex with the complainant.
The woman took to the witness box and gave evidence she'd gone to Mr Pryer's house after meeting two girls in a skate park who invited her.
At the home they went into a shed in the backyard where Mr Pryer and other males were smoking cannabis.
She said she was led into Mr Pryer's house where they had sex.
On another occasion in the shed she performed oral sex on Mr Pryer who directed three other males to join in, she said.
She recalled being picked up in a car along with her friend and taken to a disused property at Duck Reach where she had sex with Mr Pryer and another man.
She said the friend had walked in on her and the other man having sex on a mattress.
Mr Hughes put it to her that Mr Pryer had never slept with her, which she rejected.
The friend then gave evidence that she'd gone to Mr Pryer's shed along with the alleged victim.
She said she never saw any sexual contact between her friend and Mr Pryer but left when she witnessed ``interaction'' between the two of them.
On the Duck Reach incident she told the jury that she saw her friend and another man go into a room where she presumed they were having sex because the only thing in the room was a mattress.
She fled the house and said she did not see Mr Pryer have sex with her friend.
The trial continues.