Judge to sum up in indecency case

Jury set to be asked to reach verdict

THE jury hearing the trial of a man accused of indecently assaulting three young girls will today be asked to reach a verdict in the case.

The man, whose identity remains suppressed, denies eight charges, five of indecent assault and three of trying to film two of the girls.

Crown and defence counsel summarised their contrasting cases yesterday and the judge will sum up the case today.

A wideranging suppression has prohibited publication of the man’s name and any information which would identify him, his family or his place of work and any witnesses in the case.

The man, aged in his 50s, is alleged to have offended against two of the girls, then aged about 11, some time in 2010 or 2011.

One representative charge relating to the third complainant accuses the defendant of indecently assaulting her on a specific date in November 2013 when she was 9 years old.

None of the three complainants disclosed what they say the man did to them until several years later. By then, two of the complainants, sisters, were living in Australia.

Each of the girls said they had not realised at the time that what the man did to them was wrong. During an extensive summary of the Crown case yesterday, the jurors were told the young age of the girls at the time of the offending was significant. The events were complex and difficult for adults to deal with, let alone children.

And because of what the Crown said were similarities in the offending against each girl, the principle of propensity came into play, counsel said. If the jurors found there was a similarity, they could use evidence relating to one complainant when considering the cases involving the other two.

The girls were all young females, of similar age at the time of the offending. All were vulnerable to a degree because of their age and circumstances. And the offending alleged was similar and happened in an environment where the defendant’s contact with the girls would not be seen as unusual or abnormal.

The similarities showed a propensity by the defendant to behave in a certain way, the Crown said.

Having heard all the evidence, the jurors were in the best position to decide if they thought the defendant had done ‘‘these things.

Was it just ‘‘a remarkable and unfortunate coincidence’’ all three girls had made very similar allegations against the defendant, Crown counsel asked.

He suggested if they looked at all the evidence carefully and applied their common sense and life experience, the jurors would conclude what they had heard was not an unlikely and similar coincidence.

‘‘What you’ve heard about happened to these three complainants,’’ he said.

But defence counsel said the jurors knew from the evidence the complainants were all ‘‘troubled and wayward girls’’. He asked why the complaints came out when they did.

‘‘What’s gone on in their lives in the intervening years? Is that the catalyst for an unreliable complaint?’’

None of the complainants had been asked any challenging questions in their police interviews, he said. While the Crown said the girls stuck to their guns, ‘‘so forget about peripheral details’’, defence counsel argued ‘‘that won’t wash’’.

He asked whether the fact the sisters had made their complaints three or four years later, from thousands of miles away, when both were suspended from their high school, was ‘‘a fertile ground for a false complaint or an innocuous circumstance’’.

Both had been in serious trouble at school and, when asked repeatedly by him why they were talking about the defendant then, one said they had discussed the matter, the other said not.

‘‘Does it not cause you some concern that we can’t get an answer as to why his name came up at that time,’’ counsel asked, suggesting the possibility of collusion, where the villains became the victims.

‘‘We don’t know. But we know both had serious drug issues. How did that affect them?’’

Given what the jury knew of where the offending allegedly happened, was it inherently likely the defendant would behave as the girls said he did, defence counsel asked.

He described what the third girl alleged as ‘‘a figment of her imagination’’.

And he suggested there was ‘‘no pattern at all’’ to the alleged offending that would allow a finding of propensity.

The proper verdict on all charges was ‘‘not guilty’’, he told the jury.