A SCHOOLGIRL lied about having a sexual relationship with a man when she was 12 because her mother would be angry and she did not want to get anyone into trouble, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

The teenager, now 15, told the authorities her boyfriend was her own age and then made up another story that he was a 29-year-old drug dealer.

Speaking behind screens in court, she said she sneaked out of the house to meet a man called “Khany” and they had sex in his car.

The girl said she had first met him while riding round on buses.

He had a silver Vauxhall Astra and they went “cruising” together at night during a month-long relationship.

Usaid Zeb, 23, of Daisy Hill Lane, Daisy Hill, Bradford, denies two charges of raping a child under 13 in the summer of 2012.

The court had heard the man was caught when detectives investigating alleged child sex exploitation in the Keighley area interviewed the youngster about a suspect with links to her mother.

The Crown’s case is that he was using the name “Khany” and picking up the girl late at night for sex.

The teenager’s mother told the court of her shock when she learned the child was sexually active. The mother said: “I was shocked. I started crying.”

The woman said her daughter’s head of school year came to her home to tell her.

She told the jury she asked the 12-year-old the age of the male and she replied “13 or 14”.

The child then said she had crept out of a window to meet a 29-year-old drug dealer and had sex with him.

The woman said there was “a very, very heated emotional scene” between mother and daughter.

A former female friend of the girl’s mother said she saw Zeb and the 12-year-old sitting together in the back of a car. He was smoking cannabis and put his arm round the girl but she seemed shy.

The woman said the girl made her promise not to tell her mother.

The girl told the police “Khany” gave her sweets and did not hurt her.

David McGonigal, for the Crown, has told the jury that a 12-year-old child cannot legally consent to sex, even if no force is used.

Zeb’s case is that he never had sex with the girl. The trial continues.