Webster told police he ‘loves children’
(CNS): Errington Webster, who is accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl last year, appeared to choke back tears during an audio interview with the police that was played to the jury in the Grand Court Thursday, as the case against him continued. Asked by the interviewing officer if he was attracted to children, he said that it was not a fair question and that he “loved children”, as he appeared to become emotional. The jury heard Webster say that he must have been out of his mind if he was masturbating on the video with the child.
The police officer asked the retired fire fighter and would-be politician a number of questions about him taking out his penis and constantly masturbating in front of the girl as he drove her down a secluded road. As the questions were posed about what he was doing, sometimes he denied the allegations and others he claimed not to be able to remember.
Webster also went into detail about believing that he had suffered some kind of blackout or medical problem that day, as he had taken an extra dose of his hypertension medication and mistakenly drunk grapefruit juice that morning. He complained of a pain in the head in his car when he was with the girl, thinking she had “jugged him in the neck” and said that he had passed out in his car port at home.
He denied the other allegations of sexual assaulting the teenager in his house and car on three other occasions.
Webster gave two interviews to police. In the first he denied ever giving the teenager money or a phone, though he admitted that he had taken her to buy clothes at J. Michael’s on one occasion when she was with a friend. He said he had given money to her family. But in the second interview he changed his account and said he had given the young girl around $300 in cash.
Asked about his contact with the girl and messaging in particular, he described it as not very often. However, the police found more than 1,100 text and WhatsApp messages between them over the course of 2016 before his arrest.
He denied asking the girl to send him pictures of herself naked, but he said that she had sent them to him and he had deleted them, though he did not tell anyone. He claimed the girl had asked him to have sexual intercourse with her but he had told here that she did not understand what she was asking, and again he said he did not tell anyone about that, although he was concerned.
During the interviews, at times Webster would categorically deny the direct allegations made in relation to the alleged offences and on other occasions, as he answered similar questions, he would say he could not recall or say he did not believe the things could have happened that were on the video.
He also claimed that a member of the girl’s family had come to his house when he was not there some time before his arrest and threatened to expose the video of Webster unless he gave them money.
The case continues.
