Southern Downs man charged with abusing stepdaughters in ‘unique’ case

A man charged with sexually abusing two young girls has made a plea to the court to grant him a special trial, claiming his matter is so unusual a jury would be ‘heavily prejudiced’ against him.

A Southern Downs man is charged with absuing his stepdughters, following an earlier conviction for similar offending at the same time. ‘

A Southern Downs man charged with sexually abusing his stepdaughters has asked a court to grant him a judge-only trial, arguing his past convictions for similar offences against the same girls means he cannot get a fair trial.

The man was convicted in 2017 of sexually abusing the girls, served time behind bars, and was released before police charged him with further offences two years later.

He is now charged with three counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16 in his care, and two of indecent treatment of a child under 12 in his care.

It is alleged the new offences were committed around the same time as the prior offending, but that the victims did not report it to police at the same time they made the other complaint.

Barrister Jess Goldie appeared in Warwick District Court this week to ask for a judge-only trial to be ordered, arguing it was the only way to combat the “heavy prejudice” the “unique” matter would generate.

“The background circumstances for this particular case are that it’s quite unusual in the way it’s proceeded,” she said.

“Effectively what happened was the two (girls) made a complaint to police some years ago, and there were some negotiations before a plea of guilty for some of those offences described to police.

“(The man) served his sentence, he was then released and the two complainants effectively then came back to police with more allegations.”

Ms Goldie said it was “inexplicable” as to why police waited another two years to charge her client.

She questioned whether a jury would be able to put the earlier conviction for similar offending “out of their mind”, even with a court direction to do so.

“It’s different in that it is not new offending. It is offending that is alleged to have happened at the same time as the other offending described to police, it is just they never told police about it back then,” she said.

“Naturally the Crown are going to want to seek to lead the evidence of (the defendant) pleading guilty to the offences for which (the girls) first complained about.

“I couldn’t argue against the admissibility of that because it goes towards the circumstances of the relationship (and) is similar offending.”

Crown prosecutor Ryan Godfrey said while he conceded the matter was “slightly unusual”, he didn’t consider it something that would render a jury unable to perform its duty.

Judge Amanda McDonnell agreed and dismissed the application.

“I am not persuaded in the present case that this cannot be dealt with by an appropriate direction to the jury,” she said.

“I do not consider it is in the interests of justice to make a jury order. I accept that there is a unique feature there of the convictions but do not consider that alone warrants an order for a no-jury trial.”

The matter was adjourned to the next Warwick District Court sittings in May.
The man is on bail.