'I'm no wild animal,' asylum seeker tells sex assault trial

An asylum seeker has told a court he did not attempt to kiss a 14-year-old girl, because he is “not a wild animal”.

- JOSH PAYNE

Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, an Ethiopian national, denies touching the teenager last month, days after arriving in the UK on a small boat. He told Colchester Magistrates’ Court he only said “hello” to the girl and her friends in Epping, Essex, and nothing more. Kebatu, who was a “teacher of sports” in his home country, said the offences he is alleged to have committed were “anti-Christian” and that he would “prefer actually to die than to do these kind of things”.

He told the court he had been filmed on his knees apologising to one of the alleged victims because she was “drunk” and “agitated” and he was “worried about ramifications on the other immigrants” at the Bell Hotel, where he had been living for around a week before his arrest, after travelling through Sudan, Libya, Italy and France.