‘800 pages of chat’ disclosed by SAPOL after Basketball SA umpire Nathan Aaron Wieland charged with child abuse crimes
The former South Australian Referee of the Year’s lawyer said it would take him weeks to sort through the new material given to the court today.
Police & Courts
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‘Significant’ amounts of new evidence against a former NBL basketball referee and longtime volunteer charged with grooming and sexually abusing teenage boys will take his lawyer weeks to “get on top of”, a court has heard.
On Tuesday, Nathan Aaron Wieland, 45 of Ingle Farm, faced the Adelaide Magistrates Court via audio visual link from custody charged with a raft of child sex offences.
The former basketball referee, once named South Australian Referee of the Year, appeared emotionless as he heard SA Police and prosecutors had just disclosed 800 pages of his “chats” with children online to his defence lawyer.
Mr Wieland was due to answer charges including nine counts of unlawful sexual intercourse and two counts of procuring a child for sexual activity.
He’s also facing a further eight charges of communicating to make a child amenable to sexual activity, 14 counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, three counts of sexual abuse of a child and three counts of procuring a child for sexual activity.
However, Amy Fisher, prosecuting, asked magistrate Karim Soetratma for a week-long adjournment on both of Mr Wieland’s files for counsel to go through the extra information.
“The reason for that is late last week it became apparent through discussions with police that there are 800 pages of chat material that were available that hadn’t been disclosed to me. I obviously needed to consider that material before I am in a position to finalise the charges for charge determination,” she said.
“That wasn’t able to be done in accordance with the court’s timeline.
“There is obviously a significant volume of material in this matter, and I was only able to provide the preliminary briefing in it’s full form to defence yesterday afternoon. It is anticipated that both files will eventually be joined together.
Details of the charges against Mr Wieland reveal that police alleged he was grooming young men by sending them messages as well as sexually assaulting victims at the same time he was travelling Australia refereeing NBL games.
In 2014 – the same year Mr Wieland was awarded referee of the year by the Central Australia Basketball League, now known as NBL One Central, he was allegedly grooming a teenage boy.
The court on Tuesday heard Stephen Ey, for Mr Wieland, required at least 6-8 weeks to go through the “significant” amount of material.
“I don’t oppose an adjournment, in fact I would be seeking a long time as (Ms Fisher) gave me a big box of goodies yesterday, and there’s a massive amount to go through. I’m asking for about six weeks to facilitate getting on top of the material, speaking to my client and getting instructions.”
Mr Soetratma allowed the adjournment, and Mr Wieland will return to court in March.
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