“I WAS curious,” said a man who is accused of raping a seven-year-old girl when asked by police why he took indecent photographs of her.

The former night porter Attila Dombi, of Saffron Road in Bracknell, is on trial at Reading Crown Court charged with raping a girl when she was seven years old.

The 51-year-old has admitted to the court that he took three indecent photographs of her. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing indecent images of children.

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However, the defendant denies the allegation of rape as well as two counts of sexual assault against the child, two counts of causing a child to look at a pornographic video and one count of causing a child to look at him engaged in sexual activity.

In court on Wednesday (June 28), prosecutor Charles Ward-Jackson read out a police interview with Dombi when he was arrested and taken to Loddon Valley Station on July 30, 2021.

Dombi, who used to work at Cantley House Hotel in Wokingham, was being asked about how the indecent photographs of the girl, when she was seven years old, were taken.

He said he was playing hide and seek with the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, when he found her in an upstairs bedroom and she allegedly showed him her underwear.

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“I found her and she said did I want to take a picture,” he told officers. “I said, ‘Woah’…I said ‘okay’ and I did.

“In that moment I didn’t know what to do and okay, I admit it, I did do a picture.

“But I was curious and terrified. I was curious, I admit, but I never, ever touched her. I was shocked and said, ‘What are you doing?’ And she said, ‘Do you want to take a picture?’”

When asked by officers why he was ‘curious’ about the girl, the defendant responded: “How they look, I don’t know.

“It’s something else, something different from normal sex, something unusual.”

He told officers he had wanted to delete the photographs but when asked why he didn’t, he responded: “I don’t know, I can’t answer that.”

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Dombi’s house, where he lives with his wife and brother, was searched when he was arrested and officers seized a computer, laptop, and a phone.

On the devices, police found 22 Category A images, eight Category B images and 37 Category C images.

The trial continues.