A 32-year-old man allegedly had sex with a vulnerable 13-year-old girl during a seven-month relationship in which they exchanged almost 5,000 texts and calls.
James Collins started seeing the girl, who has learning difficulties, after meeting her at the home of a friend in Dawlish where she was living.
Her family became worried about the contact and her older sister found Collins with the girl in a car park in Exeter.
She was said to have a crush on him and carried on seeing him even after the police were called in, receiving a visible love bite on her neck the day before her videotaped interview.
Collins, aged 32, of Warwick Road, Exeter, denies four counts of sexual activity with a child. He says he knew the girl but there was no sexual contact.
Mr Peter Coombe, prosecuting, said the girl has learning difficulties and will need a trained psychologist to help her give evidence.
She met Collins who was a friend of the occupier of the house where she was staying in Dawlish in April 2015, when he was 30 and she had just turned 13.
Mr Coombe said they had sex for the first time when the girl was playing with a cat and kittens and he pulled down her trousers.
Other incidents happened when she visited him in Exeter and while they were watching television when he visited her at Dawlish.
They also exchanged large numbers of texts and calls. Records showed he sent her a total of 1,100 and she sent him 3,699 in the space of seven months.
Mr Coombe said: ’There was constant phone contact going on all through the day’
He said there were also lengthy calls very late at night and text exchanges going into the early hours.
The police were called in when the girl told her grown-up brother and sister what was happening but she went to see him on the day before her police interview and returned with love bites.