A 34-year-old man who was found to be living with a 15-year-old girl who he claimed told him she was 17, was sternly reprimand when he appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.

Magistrate Maxine Ellis ordered that the accused, who is facing charges of grievous sexual assault, abduction of a child under 16, sexual grooming, and sexual intercourse with a person under 16, be remanded.

“How you fi live wid a 15-year-old? She can’t married you!” the magistrate remarked after the accused admitted to the court that he had been living with the teen.

He said she told him that she was from Clarendon and that her parents were dead. According to him, he met her in June and she came to live with him in August.

“You can’t be living with a child. How can you be living with a child? You are a grown man!” she scolded.

“I don’t understand how an adult male can stomach living with a 15-year-old,” she continued.

“She can’t be your wife. What kind of function can she perform? What do you talk about?” Ellis asked further.

In his defence the accused told the court that the teen had told him that she was 17.

But the magistrate told him that his defence would not stand up, as he was not a young man and should be able to differentiate between a child and a young woman.

“When you look at her good you should be able to tell. When she is sleeping and you look at her you should be able to see the innocence in her face,” Elllis said.

“When you look at her nubile body, at her skin, she nuh crusty and old like me and you are old enough to discern,” she reprimanded further.

Ellis also told the man that even if he believed that the teen was 17, he should have sought her parents and got their permission, as he is required by law to get consent from her parents for them to cohabit since she is legally unable to make that decision for herself.

She then encouraged the accused to plead guilty since he admitted to living with the teen, but rethought her position and instructed that he be assigned a legal aide.

“You made a mistake, a big mistake!” she said to the man. And as he was leaving, Ellis shouted, “Go look your own age man, Jesam!”