A Torbay girl who claims her mother sold her into prostitution says she thought it was payback for causing hassle and trouble.
The 15-year-old told a jury in the High Court at Auckland this week that on two occasions, when she was 12 and 14, her mother allowed a malefriend to perform oral sex on her.
On the second occasion, her mother was paid $200, the girl has claimed.
She told prosecutor Louise Freyer that she believed it was her mother's way of paying her back.
The 35-year-old woman denies two charges of being a party with Alexander White to the sexual violation of her daughter by unlawful sexual connection.
White has disappeared and is presumed to have drowned.
Cross-examined by defence counsel Adam Couchman, the girl acknowledged that she had told a number of people that her statement to the police was not true.
She had told people she had made up the complaint because of a major row with her mother.
But the girl maintained in court that she had been abused by her mother's friend.
She told Louise Freyer that she told people she had lied to the police because she was scared her mother would go to jail.
She still feared her mother would be sent to prison.
But she had changed her mind and decided to tell the truth because what her mother had done to her was wrong.
The trial, before Justice John Laurenson, continues.
