Teen made up tale of luring and abuse, defence lawyer argues

The teen girl who claims to have had an underage affair with a Calgary man is lying, argued a defence lawyer who grilled the youth on Thursday.

Jim Lutz noted the girl admitted that during an alleged four-month relationship in 2013, only one of her friends ever saw her together with Satinderjit Mangat, then 37, who’s charged with Internet luring, sexual assault, touching and child pornography offences.

And the lawyer voiced skepticism over the girl’s insistence she was able to sneak out of her house at least 80 times at night to be with the man, known to her as Sam Pat, without being detected by five other family members.

Lutz said the teen was fabricating her description of her first encounter with Mangat in August 2013 when she said as a 14-yearold she joined him in his car in the alley behind her home hours after contacting him for the first time online.

“You had no idea who this person was ... isn’t it possible you never actually got in the car with him, you never actually met up with him?” Lutz said in Court of Queen’s Bench.

Replied the girl, testifying on closed-circuit TV: “I did.”

“When I suggest you never had sex with Sam Pat in any form, would you agree or disagree?” asked Lutz.

The girl said she disagreed, adding later their relationship “moved to him hitting me during our sexual activity.”

There are inconsistencies between the teen’s earlier statements and her courtroom testimony regarding the colour of Mangat’s car and in details of sexual activity that allegedly occurred with the accused, said Lutz.

When the girl had trouble describing an apartment she said was the scene of sex between her and Mangat, the lawyer said “isn’t it because you never went there, you never had sex with Sam Pat ... at that apartment.”

And he said the same of her testimony that she’d had sex numerous times at Mangat’s Falconridge home, despite never seeing any of his roommates there.

“Is it because you were never actually at the house?” said Lutz.

Lutz suggested Facebook chats with her girlfriends that introduced them to Mangat shows the alleged victim wanted to boast of what she claimed was her relationship with the accused.

“You wanted them to be added (as Mangat’s Facebook friends) because you wanted your friends to know you knew this Sam Pat fellow,” said Lutz, to which the girl agreed.

She also agreed that, with one exception, Mangat showed little interest in meeting her girlfriends.

Lutz also argued she was deceptive in posting her age on her Facebook account, inflated by 18 years.

“It’s true you can change this information at any time ... you didn’t change it, did you?” said Lutz.

In earlier testimony, the girl said she told Mangat she was 14.

The age of sexual consent in Canada is 16.

The current portion of the nonjury trial before Justice Marsha Erb is expected to conclude Friday.