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Girl confronted abuser with slug gun, crown alleges
The crown will allege a young girl used a slug gun to confront the man who was sexually abusing her, to try to stop his abuse of her younger sister.
That allegation was made by prosecutor Claire Boshier as she opened the crown case in a trial where five girls are alleging 44 instances of sexual abuse by a West Coast man.
The trial is before Judge Philip Moran and a Christchurch District Court jury and is due to last all week and into next week.
The 52-year-old man pleaded not guilty as all of the charges were read to him. They allege sexual offending over a six-year period from 1997 to 2003 at a series of small West Coast towns. The man’s name cannot be published. Elizabeth Bulger appears as defence counsel.
Miss Boshier said there were 14 charges of doing an indecent act with the young girls, seven charges of indecent assault, four charges of abducting a child under six for sex, and 19 charges of sexual violation.
The offences include allegations of inducing girls to touch his penis, masturbating while reading a pornographic magazine in front of the girls, showing them his genitals, oral sex, touching, and sexual violation with his fingers.
Judge Moran told the jury the complainants would give evidence in court from behind a screen.
Miss Boshier said one of the girls would tell of the man making her touch his penis while he was looking at a magazine, about the time of her sixth birthday.
One would say that when she was seven the man locked her in a bedroom with him, undressed her and made her perform oral sex. She got the key from his pocket and got out of the room when he fell asleep.
One girl would tell of seeing him abusing her younger sister, aged five. The younger girl had given an evidential interview in which she had not disclosed the offending, but the older sister was being called by the crown as an eyewitness.
Miss Boshier said one of the victims had confronted the man with a slug gun, telling him to stop abusing her younger sister. Another girl, also a complainant at the trial in 11 of the charges, would give evidence of seeing the incident, and taking the gun off the girl.
She said the police investigation began in 2004 when the girls were interviewed. By then the man had left for Australia but he was spoken to when he returned to the West Coast in 2007, with his partner.
He went to the police station but when he asked if he could drop his partner home he did not return and the couple were found at Christchurch Airport next day, trying to board a flight to Australia a day earlier than they had booked for.
A trial was set for January 2009 but the man did not return from Australia for it and was eventually found in Western Australia and extradited to New Zealand to face the charges in January this year, Miss Boshier told the jury.
