A FORMER security officer accused of raping a teenage girl and inciting child prostitution told a jury she had made up the allegations for money.

Saeed Akhtar, known as Sid, told Bradford Crown Court yesterday he believed the girl was 18 when she began staying at his Bradford house because she was homeless.

Akhtar, 55, said he first met the girl in the spring of 2010 and last saw her about five months later, several weeks before he received a Harbourer’s Warning from the police.

He said she was brought to his home by his brother and a friend after she was left stranded on Baildon Moor. Later, she asked to stay at the address until she was allocated a council flat.

Akhtar, who had also run a car business and worked for Bradford Community Transport, taking disabled people and children on outings, said the girl was “headstrong and domineering” but he didn’t have the heart to kick her out.

She would wait, crying, on his doorstep to be let in. She and her friend turned up with cocaine and alcohol but Akhtar said he made it clear he did not want drugs on the premises.

He agreed that the police came to his address 16 times looking for the girl after she was reported missing, telling the court: “They were welcome. They were just doing their job.”

On one occasion, the girl and a female friend were found by officers hiding in a cupboard upstairs. Half an hour later, the police brought the girls back to the house, saying they were over 18 and could do what they liked.

Akhtar said he did not regularly hold parties at his house, they were “social gatherings,” where he and his friends had a drink, discussed politics and watched YouTube videos.

He was shocked by the Harbourer’s Warning, issued in November 2010, but signed it gladly.

“I was happy because that gave me a reason not to let her in again,” he said.

Akhtar denied ever buying alcohol or cocaine for the girl. He said he never touched her sexually or encouraged her to have sex with men at the house.

He had a girlfriend at the time and had no interest in the teenager, describing her as “a pain.”

“I didn’t want her in my house. I wanted her to sort herself out. She just kept turning up,” he said.

Asked by his barrister, Peter Moulson QC, why the girl was making the allegations, Akhtar replied: “I think she is doing it for money because she never came to any harm when she was around me.”

Yasar Majid, 37, who denies a single count of rape, said he met “Sid” when they were both employed by Next in Forster Square, Bradford.

Majid, an economics graduate who now works for the Financial Services Ombudsman in London, told how he drank beer and watched a documentary on Venezuela the first time he went to Sid’s house.

On another visit, two police officers knocked on the door in the early hours looking for a missing girl. They took a teenager away but brought her back, saying it was all right because she was either 18 or 19.

Majid said he saw her again a week or two later. They were flirting in a bedroom at Sid’s house and when he returned to the room, she had her top off.

Majid said she pushed him on to the bed and they had sex.

“It was a spur of the moment, on the night thing,” he told the jury. He had no intention of repeating the sex or having a relationship.

He told the jury he did not pressure the girl into having sex with him and she was not incapacitated by alcohol or drugs.

She initiated the sex by “jumping on him.”

Ten men are on trial accused of offences arising from the alleged grooming and sexual exploitation of two girls from a Bradford care home.

Akhtar, of Bradford, denies two counts of causing/inciting child prostitution and one of rape. Majid, of Milton Keynes, denies one charge of rape. Basharat Khaliq, 38, of Bradford, denies five counts of rape and one count of assault by penetration.

Naveed Akhtar, 43, of Bradford, denies three counts of rape. Parvaze Ahmed, 36, of Bradford, denies three counts of rape.

Izar Hussain, 32, of Bradford, denies three counts of rape and one of attempted rape. Zeeshan Ali, 32, of Bradford, denies a charge of sexual assault. Kieran Harris, 28, of Dewsbury, denies two counts of rape. Fahim Iqbal, 27, of no fixed abode, denies a charge of aiding and abetting rape and Mohammed Usman, 31, of Bradford, denies two charges of rape.

The trial continues.