Man (75) found guilty of groping girls

A JURY has found a 75yearold man guilty of groping two girls.

The man was convicted on three of four charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection at the Invercargill District Court yesterday.

During the trial five witnesses gave evidence, including the victims, the offender and the girls’ mother.

The man groped the girls more than 20 years ago, on one occasion while driving his van.

The Crown argued the victims did not speak up at the time for fear of getting in trouble or not being believed.

Their mother cut them off and has had hardly any contact with them since 2019 when they spoke out about the assaults, the court heard.

Text messages from that year between one victim and the defendant show the man did not deny the allegations at the time.

‘‘You’re such a cow, I’ve hated you for so many years and now I finally have the guts to tell Mum,’’ the message to the defendant read

The offender replied, ‘‘do you not think your actions of sexual intent contribute to your situation?’’

Their mother said she did not believe the girls and there had never been any indication they had been violated.

She believed the defendant would never do anything like that to her daughters.

The offender claimed someone who hated him told the victims to make the allegations as revenge.

He said one victim had acted sexually towards him when she was younger and someone must have instructed her to do so as it seemed ‘‘choreographed’’.

The allegations of groping the girls while he drove, he said would be logistically ‘‘absolutely impossible’’.

He also said his arm would not have fit up the leg hole of the victim’s pants.

Both girls described the man sexually assaulting them in his vehicle, but the jury only believed this to have happened once, finding him not guilty of the other charge relating to the van.

Under crossexamination one girl concluded she was not sure which vehicle the alleged offending had happened in.

Counsel Hugo Young suggested the girls’ versions of events were too similar to be true — that they were ‘‘chipping in’’ to support each other’s false allegations.

The jury however found most of the victims’ evidence to be true.

They deliberated for more than four hours before delivering their unanimous verdicts.

His namesuppression was continued by Judge Micheal Turner until his sentencing date, which will be decided when the case is recalled in July.