A man was cleared of defiling and having sex with his partner's 14-year-old daughter after a court found that the girl was not credible as she had changed versions countless times.
The girl, it emerged, had psychiatric problems and whenever she faced a difficult situation she made an allegation of sexual abuse, the court noted.
In fact, when her parents separated, she had claimed she was abused by her adoptive father. She then claimed that her mother's partner abused her at a time when her mother disapproved of her relationship with another girl.
Magistrate Audrey Demicoli presided over the case of the 49-year-old partner who denied defiling the girl and having sex with her on and before February 2010.
When the girl testified in court, she said her mother disapproved of her relationship with another girl and wanted her to break up. The partner then offered to allow her to use his mobile phone to contact her girlfriend - on condition that she touched his private parts.
She claimed that this happened often and that she also had consensual sex with her mother's partner on two occasions, in her mother's bed.
When the girl's girlfriend broke up with her she was shattered and, round about the same time, a man she knew committed suicide. The girl started having suicidal thoughts so she was taken to Mount Carmel Hospital where she spent seven months.
While she was in hospital, she gave social workers and psychiatrists several versions of events. First she said she had invented the allegations to get back at her mother for not allowing her to continue seeing her girlfriend.
But she then said that she had been abused and said it was not the case because the accused claimed he would kill himself.
The magistrate also heard how the girl had problems at school where she had made sexual advances to other students. A psychiatrist said the girl had psychiatric problems from a young age and said he had doubts as to whether she was telling the truth.
"For these reasons the court has serious doubts as to the truth of the version as recounted by the minor," the magistrate said as she cleared the man of the charges.