Brothel owner 50, told teen he was 22, court told

A 15-year-old girl who ran away from home to meet a 22-year-old surfer was shocked to instead find he was a brothel owner, aged over 50, she told a court yesterday.

She was giving evidence on the opening day of the trial of Michael Andrew Keith Hastie, 58, on sex and drugs charges, the Taranaki Daily News reported.

He has denied contracting a girl under 18 for sex, receiving earnings from the girl, unlawful sexual connection with a 15-year-old girl, attempting to assist a girl under 18 to provide commercial sexual services and supplying drugs.

The girl told New Plymouth District Court her first contact with Hastie was in 2005 when she took a call from him on her friend's cellphone and they kept in contact.

A short time later she ran away from her grandparents' Wellington home after Hastie paid for a bus ticket for her to New Plymouth under a false name.

However, when she arrived she found Hastie was not the 22-year-old surfer he had said he was.

"I was pretty shocked," she said. "He definitely wasn't a young surfer, he was an old man, 50 or 60. I started texting my friend saying, 'he's not young, he's old, I don't know what I've done'. I was freaking out."

The Crown said the accused asked the girl to work as a prostitute about a month after she arrived in New Plymouth, having already slept with her on a number of occasions, and that he also tried to make one of the girl's friends work as a prostitute.

Defence counsel Kylie Pascoe said the accusations were nothing more than perverse allegations from two young girls.

The trial, before Judge David Ongley continues today.

- NZPA