Girl X rape scandal: Alleged abuser angrily denies relationship with 14-year-old foster care girl

THE carer accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a foster care facility denies having a relationship with her. VIDEO: WATCH AS WE CONFRONT HIM

• TEEN VICTIM WAS PUSHED TO THE VERY EDGE
• GIRL DIED BEFORE TRIAL OF ALLEGED ATTACKER
• SEX ABUSE WARNINGS MADE BEFORE GIRL X’S DEATH
• CLAIMS OF COVER-UP AS RAPE ALLEGATIONS DROPPED

THE carer accused of ­repeatedly raping a 14-year-old girl in a foster care facility denies having a relationship with her and claims DNA evidence found on the girl’s underwear that points to him was never independently tested.

When confronted by The Daily Telegraph at his north shore home yesterday, the man, now 30, also defended having a picture of the now deceased “high needs” teen, since dubbed Girl X, on his phone, saying “the only picture I had, it was sent to me”.

The Telegraph can reveal the man was one of the first child soldiers to be rescued by an Australian charity after both his mother and father were killed. He married an Australian woman following a short romance in Africa, only to dump her when he arrived in Sydney in 2006.

The Daily Telegraph revealed on Monday that the rape charge against the man was dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions after the girl died from an overdose in state care, just two weeks before the case was set down for trial in 2014. It was claimed in medical evidence that the DNA profile match on sperm found in Girl X’s underwear with the accused man was “expected to occur in fewer than 1 in 100 billion individuals”.

Girl X died at 14 from a presumed drug overdose / Supplied

It was also revealed that if she had not attempted suicide the morning after the 2012 rape, authorities may never have known about the assault.

“What did I do? Oh ‘he raped her for five months’, what are you talking about? You are talking rubbish,” the man told the Telegraph yesterday. “The forensic evidence doesn’t say that I slept with her ... and I asked them to give it to us so we could do our own testing but they refused.”

The father of a six-year-old girl protested his innocence, saying: “(I) did my best job. I didn’t touch any girls there.

“Did I kill her? Do you think she’s dead because of me? What did I do?” he said as two friends tried to usher him inside.

“I was just a youth worker doing my job and this thing just came up on me and I had to deal with it.”

He also denied any relationships with other underage girls at the facility.

He did, however, meet the mother of his daughter at the centre. She was his supervisor and the pair engaged in a relationship while both were employed there.

Girl X’s alleged rapist (right).

“They can have a hundred cameras, they can do what they want but I didn’t sleep with her, whether you believe it or not, that your problem,” he said.

Family Services Minister Brad Hazzard, who has ordered the DPP to review evidence on the case so “justice can prevail”, has refused to talk about the case further, the facility where it happened or ­detail what has been done to protect other children under FACS care from a similar fate.

Minister for Family and Community Service Brad Hazzard / Picture: Cameron Richardson

Shadow Family and Community Services Minister Tania Mihailuk said it was “disgraceful” that the department had awarded the care provider a 12-month extension instead of “ripping up the contract”.

“The minister has said he would act if it were his own child; he should make good on that and order an immediate inquiry,” Ms Mihailuk said.

The care home operator has also refused to ­answer calls about the operations of its Sydney foster group home where the youth worker was employed. The second group foster home, where Girl X was moved after the rape and where she died, has also ­refused to respond.

One of the former care workers accused of Girl X’s abuse.

BETRAYAL: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR

* Scandal broke in 2012

* A 26-year-old youth worker had “several sexual encounters” with “vulnerable” Girl X, 14, over five-month period at the refuge

* He also had “explicit” photos of another girl at the centre under his care

* Another youth worker at the refuge also had sex with the girl several times during “sleepover shifts”

* Classified as “high needs”, Girl X was so enamoured with worker BJQ, 26, she could “recite” his mobile number

* BJQ was charged with aggravated sexual intercourse with a girl aged 14 after she was brought to Sydney Children’s Hospital following a sexual encounter

* Girl X has since died

* DPP dropped the case against BJQ despite overwhelming DNA evidence due to “inconsistencies in relation to statements made by her prior to her passing”