A six-year-old girl took the witness stand at Supreme Court yesterday to give evidence in the case of a man accused of sexually assaulting her – but he was later cleared of the charge.

The 23-year-old defendant was alleged by prosecutors to have performed a sex act on the child after illegally entering her home in April. He denied the allegations.

Opening the case against him yesterday morning, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Michael McColm told the jury the incident happened after the accused attended a family gathering at a neighbouring home.

Mr. McColm said the girl was in her mother's home being cared for by a babysitter when the man went there and started playing a game which involved a towel being placed over her eyes and things being put inside her mouth.

Mr. McColm alleged that this game included the man performing a sex act on the girl.

A screen was placed in front of the dock as the little girl took the stand as the first witness in the case, so she could not see the accused.

Neither she nor he can be identified for legal reasons.

Clutching a teddy bear as she answered questions from Mr. McColm, she said she saw the man outside her house washing his car on the day in question.

She told the jury he asked if she wanted some gum, she said yes, so they went into her house. She described how they played a game of 'what do I see?' which involved him wrapping a towel around her eyes.

Quizzed by the prosecutor – and later defence lawyer Richard Horseman – over what happened next, the child said only that the man put his finger in her mouth three times.

At the time, she said, she could see his legs, hands and feet despite the towel.

In answer to repeated questions, she said nothing else happened at that point.

However, she described how later the man went up on top of a bed and scared her by jumping up when they were playing hide and seek.

After the games, she said she ran to tell her babysitter and later spoke to her mother. The child agreed with Mr. Horseman that the man followed her into her house after she took him there for chewing gum. The next witness, the child's mother, said she knew of the accused through a family connection.

She agreed with Mr. Horseman that the man spent a night at her house with permission once before. However, she said he had no permission to enter her home on the date in question and no reason to be there.

She described how she got into a confrontation with the man over the girl's allegation that he put a finger into her mouth, which he denied.

The third witness, the babysitter, agreed with Mr. Horseman that she left the child in the man's care outside the house while he was fixing the car, and that she would have expected him to follow her if she ran off. The final witness, Detective Constable Malcolm Eve, told the jury about the man's Police interview.

He said he was fixing his car when the child asked if he wanted gum. She said she ran off to the house, and he'd tried to stop her. Once inside, he said she showed him where the gum was kept. The prosecutor then closed the case. Following brief legal arguments, Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons directed the foreman of the jury to acquit the defendant of both counts – sexual exploitation of a child and trespassing in a dwelling house.

Explaining that there was a lack of evidence, the judge told the jury: "I do not wish to burden you with the law or the reasons behind it, but it's clear that the young child witness this morning did not come up to proof. Do not speculate about that. These things happen."

The defendant had been in custody since his arrest in April. While he was cleared of the charges in yesterday's case, he still faces action for breaching probation in a separate case.

The details of that case were not outlined in court yesterday. However, bailing the man to return to the Supreme Court on Friday for the matter to be addressed, the judge ordered him not to approach any person under 16 or be in the company of anyone under that age apart from his own child.