NORTHAMPTON — A jury heard opening statements and emotional testimony on Tuesday, the first day of the trial for a New York man accused of raping a then-5-year-old South Hadley girl in 2001.

Guy Bush, 46, pleaded not guilty in Hampshire Superior Court to child rape and indecent assault charges.

Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Caleb Weiner told the jury and Judge Daniel Ford in his opening statements that Bush — who was dating the alleged victim’s mother at the time of the incidents in July and August 2001 — molested the young girl in her bedroom on multiple occasions.

With the exception of telling a school friend in confidence, the girl did not come forward with the accusations until 2012, Weiner said.

“She carried those with her in the years since, and she carries it with her today,” he told the jury.

Weiner continued, “When she finally did (come forward), she had nothing to gain and everything to lose.”

But defense attorney Jon Heyman, of Northampton, countered that this was a case of a young girl who was bitter as a result of her parents’ divorce years earlier.

“Now she’s accusing him out of the blue, her motives unknown,” Heyman told the jury.

Heyman also saidthat the woman had, while she was in seventh grade, told a teacher that her half-brother had molested her as well, only to recant that story.

The prosecution’s case is built on “just the words of a (teenage) girl,” he added.

The alleged victim, now a 19-year-old woman, was the first witness to take the stand.

“I want to go back to a much younger time in your life,” Weiner said.

“OK,” she replied, taking a deep breath.

Weiner asked her to recount for the jury what the woman alleges happened the first time Bush walked into her bedroom on a summer night in 2001.

Bush entered her room and asked if she wanted to play a game, the woman testified.

“What kind of game?” she said she asked him.

“A fun kind of game,” he told her, and asked her to remove her clothes, she testified.

“He told me I was very skinny, that I was very pretty and a good girl for listening to him,” the woman said in court.

She continued through sobs: “I tried to stay away so he wouldn’t do it again. But the next week he came in again.”

And when the girl tried to resist, she testified, Bush put his hand around her neck. “I just kept crying, asking him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop.”

Weiner asked her why she waited all those years to report what happened.

“I need to stand up for myself,” she replied, “so here I am.”

Michael Majchrowicz can be reached at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.

Updated: This story has been updated to reflect the correct year the allegations were originally reported.