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The Press A jury decision on sex charges
against a prominent Canterbury man is expected today in the High Court in
Christchurch. The man, whose name, occupation
and age are suppressed, is facing 12 historical charges of sexually abusing a
complainant over a 10-year period when she was aged between eight and 17 to 18. The jury retired about noon, after
a summing-up from Justice Panckhurst, and continued deliberating until about
7pm. The judge told the jury it would
have to confront the total conflict between the complainant and the accused. "There is no halfway house,"
he said. "Someone is lying." On the one hand, the complainant
alleged unremitting abuse over a 10-year period, while the accused said he
had sex only once with the complainant, when she was 17. The Crown maintained the
complainant had essentially told the truth, although accepted detail was
deficient and inconsistent. It argued, the judge said, that
accounts from four witnesses, to whom the complainant, then still a
schoolgirl, had talked of sexual activity with the accused, were confirmatory
of the allegations. Two of the witnesses had spoken of inappropriate activity
by the accused towards them and this could be viewed as the accused having a
propensity to act in that way to girls of this age. The Crown had to prove the
complainant had not consented to the sexual intercourse. The defence argued the complainant
had fantasised about a sexual relationship with the accused and had dredged
up the fantasy four years ago to try to extract a house from the accused, the
judge said. According to the defence, her evidence
was "hopeless", so short of detail and context as to be dangerous. The defence case was an abused
girl would not have sought continued contact with the accused over many years
and would have acted very differently to the way the complainant behaved, he
said. |
