THE man charged with murdering teenager Hannah Foster was accused in court today of smiling while he described having sex with her.
Maninder Pal Singh Kohli has told the jury at Winchester Crown Court that he was abducted and forced to have sex with a girl he now knows to be the 17-year-old from Southampton.
He claims he was kidnapped as part of a revenge plot because he had blackmailed a colleague for £16,000 so he would not reveal an affair he had been having with the man's wife.
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Nicholas Haggan QC, prosecuting, accused Kohli of smiling as he recalled his version of having sex with Hannah.
Kohli, 41, described how he his hands had been tied and he was blindfolded before being put in the front seat of a van.
He explained that a girl, whom he now believed to be Hannah, sat astride him and had sex with him against his will.
Mr Haggan said: "You had difficulty giving that evidence yesterday without smiling and you're having difficulty again today without smiling.
"The jury saw you give that evidence yesterday and you have had great difficulty in keeping a straight face."
Kohli replied: "I told you I am a broken man. Over the past five and a half years I have lost everything. I am not smiling. I am standing here because of things I didn't do to anyone."
Mr Haggan said that Kohli's version of events that he was threatened by being forced to have sex with a girl was ''absurd''.
Kohli denies the murder, rape and false imprisonment of Hannah.
The body of the bright A-level student was found in a bramble-filled ditch at the side of Allington Lane, West End, on March 16 2003, two days after she disappeared near to her home.
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