A GREENOCK man whose DNA was discovered on an 11-year-old girl’s underpants has walked free from a sexual assault charge — after a jury found the case against him not proven.

Joshua Smith, 18, was also found to have had the vulnerable girl’s DNA on one of his own fingernails following police having been alerted by the child’s mother.

The girl — who has learning and physical difficulties — told the court via video-recorded evidence that Smith repeatedly sexually assaulted her within a bedroom that they often shared at his uncle’s home on Auchendarroch Street.

She said: “He woke me up and then he touched me.”
Asked where Smith touched her, the girl, now aged 13, replied: “Everywhere.”

The charge against Smith, now of Wellpark Buildings, related to a specific allegation of sexual assault which was said to have taken place on August 4 in 2015.

Prosecutors said that he kissed the girl and touched her body and private parts.

After seeing him with his hand on her arm, the girl’s suspicious mother sat her daughter down and was told by her that he had been indecently assaulting her, the court heard.

Following the not proven verdict the mother has told the Telegraph that her daughter has been left ‘extremely upset and angry’ because she feels that she hasn’t been believed. The mum said: “She just won’t do anything anymore. She’s not the wee girl that she used to be.”

The girl — who shared the bedroom with Smith and also her brother — told the court how she slept on an inflatable mattress on the floor.

She said that Smith would come down from his bed at night when her brother was asleep and touch her ‘under my trousers and pants’.

Asked by procurator fiscal depute David Glancy how that made her feel, she replied: “Sad.”

However, she agreed with defence advocate Joseph Barr that her mum had been ‘suggesting things’ to her about ‘what could have happened’ and that she agreed with these suggestions.

Smith told the court he did not know how his DNA was on the girl’s underpants.

A forensic expert said that the girl’s DNA found on Smith’s fingernail may have come about from him touching her private parts, or quite innocently from them sharing a room together.

Smith said that there was always him, the girl and her brother in the room at any one time, adding that if the brother had noticed anything he’d ‘tell his mum straight away’.

The jury determined by a split decision to find the case not proven after deciding that the Crown had not produced enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty.

The girl’s mum said: “It has been hard for the whole family. My daughter didn’t understand at first and we had to explain to her in a way that she would understand.

“She’s stopped going out, stopped playing with her pals, she won’t go into changing rooms in shops to try clothes on and she doesn’t go swimming anymore — which is something that she really enjoyed.

“I’ve asked her how she’s feeling and she’s really angry and upset and she insists that no-one believed her.

“I’ve told her that her mum has always believed her and the prosecutor always believed her, and I think that some of the jury must have believed her too because the verdict was not proven by majority.”

The mum said: “We have been trying so hard to get her back to the way that she used to be but she comes home after school and locks herself away in her room.

“All we can do is be there for her and live from day-to-day.”