Cape Town - Sleeping with someone means lying next to them, Johannes Christiaan de Jager told the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday to explain what he told an alleged 16-year-old murder victim.
De Jager, 49, was being cross-examined on conversations he had with Mpumalanga resident Charmaine Mare, a few days before her death in January last year.
De Jager has pleaded not guilty to murdering her on January 11.
Mare had recorded the conversations on her cellphone and these were transcribed for the court.
In one recording, Mare is heard saying: “I told uncle, 'I am underage uncle. Uncle knows that'.”
Prosecutor Romay van Rooyen quizzed De Jager on his intentions with Mare.
“Let me ask you this question, did you ask Charmaine to have sex with you?” she asked.
He replied: “I didn't use once those words. That I wanted to sleep with her and lie with her Ä those are the words.”
He said it was not asked in a sexual manner.
Van Rooyen repeatedly asked why Mare would refer to being underage if the question was not sexual.
She seemed exasperated at De Jager's answers and eventually asked what it meant “to sleep together”.
“To sleep,” De Jager replied.
His response seemed to contradict his previous testimony that he had made sexual advances but they had been rejected.
He has also denied raping and killing prostitute Hiltina Alexander, 18, in Cape Town in May 2008.
De Jager's cross-examination would resume on Wednesday.
Sapa