The sexual complaints of five women against an 83-year-old man on trial show a similarity in the offending, the Crown says.
The man has been on trial since last week in the Invercargill District Court, facing 12 charges — four counts of indecent assault on a girl under 12, three of indecency with a girl under 12, four of indecent assault on a child and one charge of indecently assaulting a girl between 12 and 16 years old.
The charges relate to five girls, aged between 4 and 15 years old, between 1976 and 2010.
Crown prosecutor Riki Donnelly said that despite some obvious differences in the evidence, overall, it showed some tendencies in the defendant’s behaviour.
Among the allegations were that the defendant tried to touch the girls’ breasts or the groin area and to kiss some of the girls, he said.
‘‘They were all girls, all young girls.’’
He told the jury the man had a lot more to do with the girls than he suggested in his evidence.
Mr Donnelly asked the jury to look at the charges as a whole and said, despite some lack of details due to the long time since the offending, all the evidence was credible and reliable.
Defence counsel Bill Dawkins requested that the charges be considered separately and that the jury be careful not to use one charge to boost another.
‘‘The risk on this trial — as all the sexual trials — is the prejudice is real.’’
He said an adult kissing a child or touching her breast was clearly a indecent act, but his client denied the allegations.
Mr Dawkins asked the jury to consider some inconsistencies in the evidence. Among them was that two of the complainants still had contact with the defendant after the offending and another lied about a hug she previously had denied, he said.
He highlighted that the defendant had chosen to give evidence at court despite not being required to.
The jurors, after hear a summing up from Judge Bernadette Farnan, retired to consider their verdict.
The trial continues today.
