20-year-old continued to meet with 13-year-old girl after breakup
Thursday, 30 January 2025
A man who got a 13-year-old girl pregnant, offered to make her dinner, continued to message her and see her at night, but denies continuing to have sex with her after learning her true age.
Luca Benedict Kercher Fairgray, now 22, has denied three charges of sexual connection with a young person under 16 and is on trial at the Auckland District Court.
He has pleaded guilty to a charge of supplying cannabis to the girl.
The Crown’s case is that the girl met Fairgray online and told him she was 13 before they began a sexual relationship. Fairgray has told the court that the girl initially lied to him and said she was 16.
Fairgray has told the court that he and the girl met online and they had sex about 10 times.
He would visit her at her mother’s and she would go to his home where he lived with his parents.
Fairgray said she told him she was 16 years old and they had a sexual relationship for a month before she got pregnant and “confessed” she was only 13.
He said he broke off the relationship at that point.
In her evidence to the court last week, the girl said she told Fairgray more than once that she was 13 years old, including when they first met online.
Under cross-examination from Crown prosecutor Pip McNabb, Fairgray maintained the girl told him she was 16.
McNabb asked what led him to believe that.
Fairgray answered: “Her face, her breast development, her height especially, she was the exact same height I was.”
He confirmed that he had made no efforts to determine the girl’s age after she told him she was 16.
“What am I supposed to do,” Fairgray asked, “look her up in a Government database or something?”
McNabb asked Fairgray about messages he had sent the girl.
He confirmed that he had continued to call her “babe” and “darling” in messages after learning she was pregnant.
McNabb asked Fairgray: “Why are you messaging a 13-year-old: ‘Good morning, darling’?”
Fairgray responded: “Because we used to have an intimate relationship.”
McNabb moved to evidence of video calls between Fairgray and the girl, many of which took place late at night and in the early hours of the morning.
Fairgray has told the court that after learning she was pregnant, they discussed her getting an abortion and he made the booking. He confirmed that when he called the clinic he gave a fake name, lied about being 15 and that he and the girl went to the same school.
Fairgray confirmed it would have been “nice” to support the girl at her appointment but she had a close family member with her.
Asked why he didn’t go, Fairgray said: “Because she told me she was 13.”
He also didn’t tell his parents about the abortion “because I was scared”.
McNabb asked why he was video-chatting with a 13-year-old girl online, late at night.
“Because she had just had an abortion and she was struggling afterwards.”
She asked why phone polling data showed that he was in the area of the girl’s house on 12 occasions after the apparent breakup, sometimes late at night and in the early hours of the morning.
Fairgray said the girl lived near a “main road” and he may have been passing the area. He said on some occasions he had met up with the girl, but that was to discuss the abortion.
He denied the pair had sex after her pregnancy.
McNabb also asked Fairgray about meeting the girl’s friend. The friend was also 13 at the time and has told the court she, too, told Fairgray that the girl was 13.
McNabb asked Fairgray why he had told a clinical psychiatrist that the friend looked like a 13-year-old.
“I did tell him that,” Fairgray said, “but what I meant by that was that she looked younger than [the girl].”
Some of Fairgray’s version of events were never put to the girl but Fairgray has repeatedly denied making things up or lying.
The trial, before Judge Evangelos Thomas and a jury, is due to hear from the last witness today.