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The Southland Times
March 16, 2004
Girl sex abuse claims denied
A former Ohai man is on trial in Invercargill this week
on charges of indecently assaulting and sexually violating a 12-year-old girl
while her siblings lay sleeping on a mattress in the same room.
The 34-year-old man, who has interim name suppression, denied three charges
of indecently assaulting and two charges of sexually violating by unlawful
sexual connection at Ohai between September 21, 2000, and March 3, 2001.
The trial began before Judge Peter Butler and a jury in the Invercargill
District Court yesterday.
In opening, Crown prosecutor Mary-Jane Thomas said the charges related to
incidents when the girl stayed overnight at the man's house and later when
the girl had been babysitting there.
Defence counsel Desmond Deacon said his client denied the allegations.
"(The girl) has made up these allegations." The girl said in
evidence yesterday the man and his family had stayed with her family when
they first arrived in Ohai and they later became neighbours.
The victim said she would see the man and his family regularly, staying
overnight and babysitting for them.
On the night of the first alleged assault the girl was staying at the man's
house with her brother and sister.
The man, his wife and the three children watched a movie then the children
went to bed after 10pm.
The girl was sleeping with her clothes on, in the single bed in the spare
room, the girl said. Her sister and brother were sleeping on mattresses on
the floor about 30cm away.
The girl said she was still awake an hour later when the man came into the
room.
"He started touching me over my clothes," she said.
He then reached under her clothes and undid her jeans and began touching her.
She pretended to be asleep and didn't say anything because she was scared,
she said.
He sexually violated the girl then pulled her jeans up and left about 8
minutes after he arrived. She opened her eyes when the man left the room and
saw that it was the accused, she said.
The girl told her best friend what had happened the next day.
The girl continued to visit the man and his wife because she was scared what
his wife would think of her if she found out.
She was babysitting there with her sister In March 2001 when the man and his
wife attended a 21st birthday party.
The girl slept in the main bedroom where there was a double and a single bed.
The girl, her sister and one of the children went to sleep in the double bed.
Her sister left about 5am to go to work, she said.
When the man came home he crawled on to the bed where her sister had been,
still wearing his clothes, she said.
The other child was still there. His wife got into the single bed and fell
asleep.
The girl said she felt numb and scared because of what had happened before.
"I didn't feel comfortable with him," she said.
With the toddler still lying between them, the man put her hand on to his
body over his clothes. She opened her eyes and saw him staring at her before
he quickly closed them.
A friend of the man walked into the room.
"He said `Oh my god' and sort of slammed the door when he left,"
she said.
She later told her friend and her sister about what had happened.
Under cross-examination, she agreed with Mr Deacon that the man's home was a
"bit like a second home" to her.
He questioned her about another man living at the house, staying in the spare
room during the first alleged offending.
She said she couldn't remember anyone else being at the house.
Mr Deacon suggested the three children all slept on the lounge floor the
night they watched the Sleepy Hollow but the girl said she was definitely
sleeping in the spare bedroom with her brother and sister that night.
The trial is expected to take four days.
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