A former office manager charged with a string of sex attacks on an employee agreed he “hand-selected” the much younger man for the job and took him under his wing.Mr Y told Magistrates’ Court that throughout his life he had helped individuals who needed assistance, spending thousands of dollars of his own money on education fees for the needy and sponsoring a school in the Dominican Republic.He said he was aware Mr X had been in prison for offences of dishonesty and was on probation when he offered him work at the start of 2009.But he disagreed with prosecutor Nicole Smith on Monday that someone who had served time in jail for such crimes was “less likely to be believed”. Mr Y, under cross-examination, said that wasn’t necessarily the case.The 59-year-old is on trial accused of eight counts of sexual assault between February 15 and June 11, 2009. He denies all the charges and neither he nor his accuser can be identified for legal reasons.Yesterday, Ms Smith asked him to cast his mind back to early 2009, when he first met Mr X, whom the court has heard was a homeless teenager.Mr Y said he offered the young man the job, which involved doing mail runs, errands and answering the telephone, because he believed he had the necessary skills and could be taught new ones.Asked if he “hand-selected” Mr X as a suitable candidate to work in the office, Mr Y said: “That’s correct, yes.”Later, questioning him about when he helped Mr X move into new accommodation, she asked: “Would you agree that you took [Mr X] under your wing?”The defendant said: “Yes, I would agree to that.”The alleged victim, now aged 22, claimed he was first assaulted by his boss on February 15, 2009, when he says the older man helped him to move his belongings to the accommodation.But the trial heard from Mr Y that he worked in his office in Hamilton that day and that he was out at a two-and-a-half hour meeting on February 19 when the second attack is alleged to have happened.E-mails purportedly sent by Mr Y from his office on the morning of February 15 and a page from his electronic diary for February 19 showing the lunch meeting have been submitted as part of his defence.But Crown counsel Ms Smith suggested the e-mails could be “just a typed page, a mere piece of paper” and the diary entry could have been created after the date in question.Mr Y insisted he did not help Mr X move on February 15 and did not ask him to come into his office on February 19.Referring to the first alleged assault, Ms Smith put it to the defendant that he extended his right arm to his employee when they reached his accommodation and “started to feel on the area of his penis”.Mr Y said that wasn’t true. The prosecutor went on: “While you were doing that, you were looking in his eyes, smiling.” Mr Y gave a short laugh and repeated: “Not true.”Ms Smith said: “[You were] smirking, like you just did. You smile all the time. You have a nervous disposition to smile, don’t you?” Mr Y said: “No.”Ms Smith said: “You were smiling with your left leg shaking.” Mr Y said: “I don’t know what that means, but no.”Ms Smith suggested he had a “nervous tic” which caused him to smile. The defendant said: “That’s got nothing to do with nerves.”The prosecutor went on to say it was due to Mr Y that Mr X had the opportunity to work and have a roof over his head.“He couldn’t do anything to upset or threaten the stability that he saw himself gaining by way of the relationship with you,” Ms Smith suggested to Mr Y.The defendant denied that was the case or that Mr X had to play by his rules.The case continues next week.