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The Southland Times
March 18, 2004
Jury finds man not guilty of sexual violation of young girl
A jury in the Invercargill District Court last night
found a 34-year-old man had not indecently assaulted or sexually violated a
girl at his home.
The verdict came at the end of the third day of the trial presided over by
Judge Peter Butler.
The man, who has permanent name suppression, had denied three charges of
indecent assault and two charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual
connection at Ohai between September 21, 2000, and March 3, 2001.
The charges related to two separate incidents, once when the girl stayed
overnight at the man's house and later when the girl had been babysitting
there.
There were emotional scenes in the courtroom as the verdict was announced.
One of the man's supporters called her tearful thanks to the jury members as
they retired.
Earlier in the day the man said the girl, who claimed to have been indecently
assaulted and sexually violated when she was 12, came from an unhappy home
and was beaten by her mother.
The man, who no longer lives in Ohai, said the victim's and other witnesses'
accounts of the sleeping arrangements at the house, on both occasions, were
incorrect.
Defence counsel Desmond Deacon asked the man whether he had fondled the
girl's breasts or unzipped her jeans and sexually violated her as she lay with
her clothes on, pretending to be asleep, in the single bed in the spare room.
Her sister and brother were sleeping on mattresses on the floor about 30cm
away.
The man said he had never touched the girl.
"I didn't do it. I wasn't there," he said.
He also denied getting into bed with the girl after he returned home drunk
from a 21st birthday party and indecently assaulting her.
"It didn't happen," he said.
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