A 15-year-old was infatuated and besotted with her 38-year-old Child, Youth, and Family Service youth worker and the pair embarked on a sexual relationship, the crown alleged in the Christchurch District Court today.
The youth worker denies two charges of having sexual connection with a young person, and one charge of meeting a young person after sexual grooming.
The trial, before Judge Michael Crosbie and a jury, is expected to last three or four days.
Crown prosecutor Lisa Preston said the youth worker was married at the time - he and his wife have since separated - when the girl was placed in a secure Child, Youth and Family home.
She said he found out that the girl had a cellphone, which was against the rules, and began texting her. The texts became more sexually explicit.
"It seems she was infatuated and replied in kind," said Mrs Preston.
When he was on duty during a quiet time at the home, he texted asking her about oral sex. He then arrived at her room and the girl gave him oral sex before they were disturbed by one of the man's co-workers.
After three months, the girl left for another home in Auckland. The man kept topping up her cellphone so that they could keep on texting and talking.
In the messages, the man described her repeatedly as his lover, and talked about what he wanted to do with her sexually when they met.
"She, too, described herself as his lover. She was pretty much besotted," said Mrs Preston.
When he travelled to Auckland for a sports tournament, the girl ran away from the home with a friend, and they contacted him by phone and met him at a shopping centre in Manukau.
The man gave the friend $10 to buy McDonald's fast food. He took the girl to a grassed area nearby where they had sex, she said.
The girl, now 17 and working as a waitress, gave evidence of the youth worker talking to her and her girlfriend at the home about sexual experiences.
She said the texting began after she told him about the cellphone she had sneaked into the home. They were exchanging sexual messages.
"I liked him. I had a little crush on him," the girl explained.
She told the court of receiving a text from him about whether she liked oral sex. When she replied yes, he soon arrived at the door of her room.
She said her mother had seen some messages from the man on her cellphone and had taken it and handed it to the police. The recovered messages were presented to the court.
One of them spoke of the man lying on his bed "looking at your picture".
She said the picture could have been one of the photographs he took of the two of them, or it could have been one she took on his cellphone of herself undressed.
Defence counsel Philip Allen asked the jury to set aside feelings of sympathy and prejudice as they considered the case. The man was not going to justify or minimise the things he had done wrong.
"Regardless of the things he did or did not do, he did not have sexual contact with (the girl). Nor did he intend to do that when he went to Auckland."
He suggested that when the jury compared the girl's evidence to that from other witnesses, they could find it was not correct.
The man has interim name suppression, but an order suppressing his occupation was lifted today.
