A man who had four children with a woman he is accused of sexually abusing denied he knew she was underage at first and said he didn't have a sexual interest in her when they met, a court heard.
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The man, now 58, gave evidence in the ACT Supreme Court on Tuesday he believed she was 17 after they met while living at the same Canberra unit block nearly two decades ago.
"I can tell you when I met [the girl] in 1999 she told me she was 17," he said, through an interpreter.
"Listen to me and listen to me well. When I had a sexual relationship with [the girl] ... I didn't know that she was 15.
"How can I explain to you that I didn't know she was underage?"
The man, who is a former political refugee from Central America, pleaded not guilty to two acts of indecency and five counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 16.
Prosecutors say the girl met the man, who was then aged about 40, when she was 14. He had kissed her on the mouth twice before their relationship turned sexual.
They said the girl fell pregnant but later miscarried.
The trial has heard the girl fell pregnant to the man again when she was 15 and their first child was born when she was 16. They went on to have three more children together.
The man said in his evidence he wasn't sexually attracted to her when they first met, or when he says they started kissing months later. He admitted the two had little in common but said he fell in love with her.
He said later "something came to my mind and I had a sexual relationship".
"I can tell you that when we had the first kiss and the second kiss and everything else that followed I really fell in love with her."
He denied he got angry when the girl told him she was pregnant with their first child, saying: "I was happy because I wanted a child."
The man said the alleged victim only revealed she was 16 after the birth of their first child but said "she didn't say anything else".
Under cross-examination from prosecutor Emilija Beljic, the man admitted he hadn't questioned the girl further despite thinking she was 17 or 18 for the previous two years.
The man said he had been first introduced to the baby from the balcony of the unit the woman shared with her mother.
He said he "recognised her" as his child because the baby "looked exactly the same as my daughter" in Central America.
"I wanted to have a relationship with [the girl] and I also wanted to have my child closer to me."
The trial continues in front of Justice David Mossop.
