CRITICAL flaws in the police investigation, com­bined with key admis­sions made under cross-examination by a woman who claimed she was sexually abused by her stepfather in 2021 when she was a minor, led to the collapse of the case at the High Court on Monday.It took a nine-member jury just 40 minutes of deliberations to return two not guilty verdicts against the 47-year-old mechanic from Arima, who had maintained his innocence since being arrested in April 2022.The man, whose name is being withheld to protect the identity of the woman, faced two char­ges under the Children Act, offences that were said to have taken place on December 21 and 22, 2021. He was charged in April 2022 and pleaded not guilty.The indictment sta­ted that on December 21, 2021, he “did cause or incite” the alleged victim, “a female child, to engage in activity which is sexual” and that on December 22, 2021, he “did sexually touch” her, “a female child being under 16 years of age”.The trial began last Monday before Justice Nalini Singh.During the course of the proceedings, the prosecution led evidence from the woman, her mother, investigating officer PC Kirk Vasquez, police photographer PC Kevin Dookie, Sgt Marlon Bishop, and the owner of a vehicle allegedly used to transport the child to a spring along the Blanchisseuse Road where the first incident was said to have taken place.However, during cross-­­­examination by de­fence attorneys Russell Orlando Warner and Kashif Gibson, certain deficiencies in the investigation emerged.PC Vasquez admitted that he never visited the spring where the first allegation was said to have occurred, never had photographs of the location to be taken, and could not say whether it was secluded.He also accepted that he failed to interview neighbours, despite the second allegation alle­ged­ly occurring on a couch outside the accused’s home.The offi­cer also admitted that he did not speak with occupants of the upstairs portion of the house.He further conceded that no DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis was conducted and that he did not interview the girl’s brother, who was said to have been in the same room when the accused allegedly woke the girl to commit the second act.The alleged victim also made several admis­sions during cross-­examination.She acknowledged that she had stolen approximately $19,500 from the man, despite previously promising not to do so, and that he had threatened to report the matter to the police.She confessed under questioning that she feared such a report and that the fear “operated in her mind” when she went to the police station to make the allegations.She further admitted the man had seized her tablet and that she was afraid he would disco­ver inappropriate online messages she had sent and report them to her mother.That fear, she said, also operated on her mind when she made the report to police.The defence argued that these matters provided a powerful motive for fabrication.Evidence was also led that the man had never previously been arres­ted, charged or convic­ted of any criminal offence.Both the alleged victim and her mother admitted that the man was a caring father who treated the girl as his own child, despite her being his stepdaughter.The defence conten­ded that the grave investigative failures, taken together with the admitted fears of the woman, rendered the allegations wholly unreliable.Attorneys Dylan Martin, Josiah Soo Hon and Khi Cambridge appeared in the matter on behalf of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).