John Walter Cattle, 83, faces ACT Supreme Court on historical child sex offence charges
A former Canberra tennis coach has pleaded not guilty to multiple indecency charges dating back to the 1980s.
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A former junior tennis coach allegedly molested two young girls he was coaching at a suburban Canberra tennis club in the 1980s, a court has heard.
John Walter Cattle, now 83, fronted the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday for the first day of a two-week trial in which he is accused of three counts of committing an act of indecency and one count of indecent assault.
Cattle has pleaded not guilty.
In his opening address to the jury, Crown Prosecutor Keegan Lee said Cattle was a coach at the Forrest Tennis Club in the 1980s.
The allegations against his first alleged victim date from the early 1980s.
Mr Lee said Cattle would get his first victim alone in the clubhouse kitchen and would kiss her using his tongue, expose himself and would have her play with his penis.
Mr Lee said when the second victim was 12 when Cattle allegedly took her into the boys change rooms, kissed her “like she had never been kissed before”, “ran his hands all over her body” and put his hands up her tennis skirt.
When the second victim’s mother picker her up from training that day, she was “visibly upset”, Mr Lee said, and told her mum that Cattle had kissed her but was too embarrassed to say that he had also touched her genitalia.
Mr Lee said Cattle also left out a pornographic magazine for the first victim to find, an act which he is not charged with, but which left her feeling shocked and confused.
He said the jury could conclude Cattle had “a number of tendencies” at the time of the alleged offending, including a sexual interest in young girls and a willingness to act on that interest.
Cattle’s barrister Craig Smith SC said his client had no criminal record.
“He has never before been charged with a criminal offence; he is a person of good character,” Mr Smith said.
“This trial is taking pace some 33 to 37 years after the incidents are alleged to have occurred.”
Mr Smith said the jury would not be satisfied on the evidence that the allegations of wrongdoing against the first alleged victim were proven.
He said there was “an event in relation to (the second alleged victim)” but that the jury would be left unsure what the event was, “for example, whether the event that occurred was actually an indecent event”.
The trial, before Chief Justice Helen Murrell and a jury, continues.