An 85-year-old Dunedin man has been found guilty of sexually abusing six girls over the course of two decades.
The jury at the Dunedin District Court yesterday returned unanimous verdicts on all 21 charges against Murray Oscar Kannewischer after five hours’ deliberation.
The crimes included 18 counts of indecency, two of rape and one of indecent assault.
Kannewischer shook his head as the guilty verdicts were read and looked at his victims in the back of the court as Judge Michael Crosbie praised them for their bravery.
The defendant’s sexual offending spanned the period of 1963 to 1983 but only came to light when one of the victims came forward in early 2015.
Other women were interviewed by police over the course of the year and as a result the man was charged at the start of 2016.The most serious of the charges on which Kannewischer was convicted yesterday were two counts of rape.
One of women told the jury this week she had been violated while the defendant’s wife was in hospital giving birth.
Others spoke about Kannewischer repeatedly groping them.One victim said the defendant would enter her room late at night and fondle her "quite roughly" on a regular basis.
"It seemed to go on forever," the woman said.
"He’d come in and I’d have the blanket up over my head pretending to be asleep, basically holding my breath and hoping it wasn’t me."
Another woman said after she was molested, the man told her "I can make it feel a lot better".
Kannewischer forced her to lie on the floor.
"I’d not ever done anything before so I had no idea what was going to happen," she said.
The victim told the court how she was then raped.
Crown prosecutor Craig Power told the jury this week in his closing address that the time lapse between the events and the trial should not cloud its decisions.
"There’s no reason why you can’t convict. There’s no reason why you can’t be sure, just because there’s been a length of time, just because they were talking about events when they were children," he said.
Multiple victims claimed Kannewischer told them the lewd behaviour would help them "become a woman".
"Those phrases, you might think that’s just not something you’d make up," Mr Power said.
Defence counsel John Westgate argued the women’s evidence was vague and inconsistent.
He pointed to one victim who had allowed the defendant contact with her children, contending this amounted to evidence she could not have been abused.
But the jury disagreed.Kannewischer was remanded in custody by Judge Crosbie and will be sentenced next month.