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The Evening Standard
January 30, 2004
Jury fails to reach verdict on sex charges
A Palmerston North District Court jury yesterday
tried for five hours, but failed to reach a verdict on a 36-year-old man
charged with sexually violating and indecently assaulting his stepdaughter.
The jury of five women and seven men was sent to begin its deliberations
about 12.45pm. But at 5.45pm told Judge Phillip Connell a verdict could not
be reached on any of the charges.
Judge Connell then discharged the jurors.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the girl, will return
for a district court call-over on March 8.
Earlier, in counsel closings, Crown Prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk said the girl's
evidence of the July 2002 sexual violation had not been challenged by the
defence, but it remained up to the jury to decide whether the attacks had in
fact happened.
The trial was effectively a contest between the complainant (then 14 years
old) and a then 34-year-old man, he said.
The jury was no better off having heard the accused give evidence in his own
defence than it was after seeing the video-taped police interview.
He described the girl's mother as someone who "simply isn't there for
her daughter in any respect whatsoever".
Her evidence achieved nothing more than to confirm the girl's date of birth.
Mr Vanderkolk said the girl's evidence had an inherent credibility and she
was "simply and plainly honourable".
The defendant's evidence did nothing to help the jury reach a verdict, he
said.
Defence counsel Fergus Steedman told the jury to ignore the girl's appearance
while she was giving evidence.
He asked jurors to concentrate on what she said.
He said a desire to leave Palmerston North, stories of a relative getting money
after a rape complaint, and a happier living environment with her
grandparents were all possible motives for the girl making the complaint.
"You may feel strangely about sexual abuse," he told the jury.
"I hope you do … but that's not what this trial was about.
"This trial was about a kid who was hurting for a long, long time."
There was also no corroborating evidence to support her story, he said.
The enduring memory of the trial would be "the miserable, squalid
room" where the attack allegedly took place, and "those miserable
squalid lives".
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