A carnal abuse case against a 21-year-old man took a dramatic turn yesterday when the 14-year-old complainant disclosed that she was the one who kissed him and forced him to be intimate with her.

The girl testified in the Home Circuit Court that she had forced herself several times on the accused, asking him to be intimate with her but he refused, saying that he would wait until she was 18.

On the day of the incident, she said she went to his house and told him she wanted to see inside his room. While they were in his room, she said she began to kiss him, "held him down" and told him to take off his clothes. She said she became intimate with him.

The accused, Seon Reid, of Gold Street, Kingston, was arrested and charged a year after the incident when he and the complainant were involved in a fight. The girl said she boxed the accused and he boxed her and a fight developed between them.

The police intervened and it was during that time that she made a report to the police about what had happened in the accused's room.

Defence lawyer Peter Champagnie made a no-case submission at the end of the Crown's case. Champagnie said, based on the evidence, the accused had a statutory defence which could not be disproved by the prosecution.

He said Reid's statutory defence was that he was between the age of 17 to 23, had never been charged before and reasonably believed that the complainant was above the age of 16.