A SWINDON man accused of forcing a teen to send sexually explicit images and videos has told a court that anyone could use his phone in the months before the allegations were made.

Trevor Fernandes said that any of his friends or the customers at the café he worked at in Amsterdam could use his phone “to check a map” or make calls.

He was giving evidence on what is day six of his trial at Swindon Crown Court on Wednesday.

Fernandes, now of Dixon Street in Swindon, is accused of demanding an American teen perform lewd acts on herself, her baby sister and her pet dog, and threatening to release sexually explicit images to her contacts if she refused.

The abusive messages, as well as photos and videos she sent, were found on a secret, encrypted partition on Fernandes’s Samsung Galaxy S10 – which he denies having any knowledge of.

Speaking from the witness box, Fernandes told the jury that he bought the phone whilst living in Amsterdam in 2019, whilst working in a café.

Soon after buying it though, he noticed that the battery was draining quickly, and his mobile internet was not lasting long.

It prompted him to buy an unlimited data plan, he told his barrister Beata Kopel, and because he had that, he was happy to let his friends and customers use his phone.

Under cross-examination from prosecutor Daniel Sawyer, the 37-year-old was asked why he had told the National Crime Agency he “never gave it for repair” and that he did not let anyone use his phone.

“You did not think it was worth mentioning that ‘when I was in Amsterdam I used to lend it to anybody who wanted it’?” Mr Sawyer asked.

“I did not think,” he replied.

“Are those things you’ve made up to try to explain how someone could have got on your phone?” Mr Sawyer followed-up. Fernandes shook his head.

Fernandes claims that his phone was hacked, and he had no awareness of the password-protected partition used to send the abusive messages to two girls.

Mr Sawyer further asked why a photo of a man wearing a McDonald’s top with his hand behind his head was found on his phone and laptop, suggesting it was in a response to the American victim’s request to prove he was who he said he was.

“No,” he said, saying that he had never seen the photo before.

He was also asked about an Instagram conversation with a girl from the account he admitted was his, in which he asked for her Snapchat account – despite denying that he had Snapchat.

Later, Mr Sawyer said, ‘cuteandstrict’ added the girl.

“By implication a high-level hacker has hacked into your person account, had the conversation, taken the screenshot, and left it for you to find,” the prosecutor said.

“As you say, it refers to Snapchat, and you know that Snapchat was found on the Knox side of the phone and not on the open side. Is that why you are lying about not having had that conversation?”

“I’m not lying,” he responded.

Mr Sawyer continued: “Everything on that phone, open or Knox, is yours, wasn’t it?

“The Knox was set up by you, accessed by you, used to store apps by you, and you used those apps to abuse [the American girl].

“You compelled her to debase herself for your own pleasure. And you got her to send you photos and videos of her doing that, and one that began with her saying ‘this is for you master Trevor’.

“You did the same to [the British girl].

“Do you find a sense of power and control from making these girls do what you told them?” the prosecutor asked.

He said Fernandes was “overconfident” his alleged victims would not go to the police “because you knew if they did you had the apps behind a hidden partition and if the worse came to the worse you could say you’d just been hacked.”

“I would never do that. I was not that person,” Fernandes replied to the allegations.

Fernandes denies 16 charges.

The trial continues.