Daniel James Leech is accused of sawing into a 15-year-old girl’s leg at a Ravenswood unit on March 17 last year.

He has pleaded not guilty.

In the Launceston Supreme Court on Monday, the alleged victim took the witness stand and claimed Mr Leech started a chainsaw and cut her through her trousers after she had made a comment about his child.

The alleged attack left her with a 15 centimetre gash in her left thigh that required surgery.

But the girl went on to say she chose to tell her family and medical staff at the Launceston General Hospital that her wound was self-inflicted, because she did not want to get Mr Leech in trouble.

“I felt my trousers ripped, but I was running I felt something down my leg. It was blood,” she told the jury.

“I said I’d done it myself.”

The girl said she stuck to a cover story about the chainsaw falling on her while cutting down a tree in the front yard, until her grandmother coaxed “the truth” out of her.

She alleged Mr Leech and two women at the unit came up with the cover story and pressured her to maintain it.

“I just broke down in tears. (My gran said) I know that’s not how it happened.”

In her own evidence, the grandmother said her granddaughter had told her that Mr Leech passed the chainsaw to her while cutting the tree down.

Mr Leech denies being at the unit.

The trial will continue on Tuesday.