A Southampton man has denied sexually touching a six-year-old girl playing in her yard.The senior citizen faces two charges of sexual exploitation of a young person on December 20 after allegedly touching her crotch and kissing her forehead for a sexual purpose.The defendant has denied touching the girl’s privates. He admits kissing her forehead but said he did it to be polite.Neither the defendant nor the victim can be identified for legal reasons.In Magistrates’ Court on Friday, the girl described riding her bicycle in her front yard with her brother when the defendant, who lived nearby, approached them.The witness sat behind a screen as she gave her testimony, blocking her view of the defendant.She told the court the man watched her and her brother play for a short while and then her brother went inside.“He said something,” she said. “I just cannot remember what he said.“Then he kissed me on the forehead. He touched my privates, but he didn’t go under my pants.“I was trying to ask him if I could go inside. I was trying to ask him politely.“I told him I should go inside and I ran inside the house.”The victim’s mother told the court that when the incident took place she was inside. She said she was using the family computer when her daughter told her what happened.“It was a nice day so I was encouraging them to go into the yard and play,” she said.“After 15 or 20 minutes [my son] came back inside. He was anxious for his turn on the computer. I told him to go call his sister inside.“He went to call but she was already on her way in. She seemed rather perplexed.”She said her daughter told her what happened. As soon as she heard, she ran out of the house and saw the defendant walking down the street away from the house.“I yelled at him. I called him by his name. I asked him if he touched my daughter.“I told him that she was six years old and he had no right to touch a child. I used some profanity as I was yelling at him.“What she told me after was that [the kiss] made her very nervous and she wanted to tell [the defendant] to leave her alone but she was scared.”Inspector Peter Charlemagne was assigned to the Vulnerable Person’s Unit at the time of the incident. He said after speaking with the victim he went to the defendant’s home and arrested him on suspicion of sexual exploitation.At that point, the defendant told him: “I told the little girl that she was pretty. She smiled. What else was I supposed to do?”During a police interview, the defendant said he was on a walk when he saw the two children playing on pedal bikes in their yard and warned them to be careful.When the boy went inside, he said he told the victim she was pretty and kissed her on her forehead to be polite. He also told officers he touched her back near her arm, but denied touching her crotch.The man told the court that he regularly walked around the neighborhood for exercise, and had seen the children on their bikes.“They were racing,” he said. “I told them not to go so fast... ‘if you fall down you’ll hurt yourself’.“When the boy ran inside the house the girl sped to me. Then she started smiling. I said she was beautiful, I bent down and touched her shoulder and kissed her forehead.”During questioning, he told the court the girl was “rubbing herself” against her bike seat.Crown counsel Maria Sofianos described the defendant as a sexual predator who laid in wait until the children were alone.The man’s lawyer, Marc Daniels, refuted the claim.He said that there was no evidence of the incident taking place other than the statement of the victim.“You are in the position of taking the words of a six-year-old against those of [a senior citizen],” he said. “Not that she is lying, but she could be mistaken.“To find someone guilty of a such a grave offence, which will have lasting importance, it’s my position that we have to be sure.”Magistrate Khamisi Tokumbo said he would reserve his decision until next week. He released the defendant on bail.