When a British teaching assistant was found guilty of having sex with a minor, he testified that the court had it all wrong, according to PerezHilton.com. In court, the man said that he only had sex with her because she pursued him based on her crush on Zayn Malik.
On Wednesday, Hamid Bhatti, 24, was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child, Perez reports. Bhatti was also found guilty of one count of abduction, after the teenage victim was reported missing and later found in Bhatti's home.
In court, Bhatti testified that the teen was the one who spent months actively pursing him, according to local British paper Somerset Live. As a teaching assistant, he said some of the female students fussed over him because he resembled the former One Direction member. Finally, he testified, he gave in.
"It was mostly [the girl] and her friends," he said. "But I was quite young and of Pakistani descent. They said I looked like Zayn Malik."
School suspicions arose when the teen girl was seen blowing him a kiss on campus, and he caught it and blew it back, according to Somerset Live. He was fired from the school that year.
Bhatti's resemblance to Malik is debatable. But, according to Perez, the court ruled there was overwhelming evidence that the teaching assistant had a sexual relationship. Bhatti will serve a five-year sentence.
If you have experienced sexual violence and are in need of crisis support, please call the RAINN Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
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