‘He took part of my life’: Man guilty for indecent treatment
Nightmares plague a woman decades after what happened when she was growing up in Blackbutt.
South Burnett
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A WOMAN has nightmares and walks around the house in the middle of the night to check on her children because of what happened to her when she was growing up in Blackbutt South in the 1990s.
The woman, who now lives elsewhere in Queensland, appeared in Kingaroy District Court as a witness and victim giving evidence against Alan Dennert on indecent treatment charges.
"After him taking away a part of my life I have found a way to stand up for myself," she said in a victim impact statement.
"I may not have had the words when I was younger but today I do.
"I believe there is no punishment that fits the crime that this person has committed but I believe he is now accountable for what he has done."
A jury found Dennert, 59, guilty of three counts of indecent treatment of a child and one count of indecent exposure to a child under 16 and under 12 years old.
The offences happened on unknown dates between December 1990 and January 1, 1995, while Dennert was in his 30s at the time.
While in his bed Dennert put his fingers inside the girl's vagina.
He put his foot or toe in the area of her vagina while playing a game of UNO at the kitchen table.
He inserted his fingers into her anus while lying on the lounge chair, and on a different occasion he exposed his scrotum and penis to her while he was sitting on the floor in front of the lounge chair.
While the woman could not remember some details of the offences, Crown Prosecutor Alex Stark said the woman still had reliability and credibility as a "reasonable historian of her childhood" and he called on the jury to consider the "way she said it and what she said".
"They are simply not capable of being things you could be honestly mistaken or confused about," Mr Stark said.
Defence barrister Catherine Cuthbert questioned the woman's poor recollection of dates and details when she had knowledge of small details such as the colour of her bed spread.
Ms Cuthbert also questioned inconsistencies when the woman said she told her mother and when her mother said she heard about the incident.
Ms Cuthbert said Dennert was regarded as a man of good character who had an excellent work history, including as a truck driver and machine operator, and was a volunteer firefighter.
"The man you are sentencing today is not the man who committed the offences," she said.
"The passage of time since these offences would indicate that this man has largely rehabilitated."
Dennert will spend his 60th birthday in prison after he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment to be suspended after six months for two years for inserting a finger into her vagina and inserting a finger into her anus.
He was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment to be suspended after six months and suspended for two years, for the UNO game incident and for indecent exposure.
The time will be served concurrently and convictions were recorded.
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