Roy Glasheen’s trial for alleged abuse of three girls at Randwick and Umina Beach begins

A man charged with 14 counts of indecently and sexually abusing three young girls at Randwick and Umina Beach has begun in Gosford.

Roy Glasheen, 70, is on trial at Gosford District Court. Picture: Peter Clark

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Roy Ernest Glasheen was simply a kindly, elderly man who helped look after the daughters of family friends and let them swim in his pool — or he was a vile paedophile who sexually and indecently assaulted them.

That is the question a jury will be asked to decide after the 70-year-old’s trial began at Gosford District Court on Tuesday.

Glasheen, of Randwick, pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of indecent and sexual assault against three victims between 2007 and 2017.

In his opening address the Crown prosecutor told the court the first eight charges related to a victim who was aged seven or eight in 2007 when Mr Glasheen first asked her to go to the toilet with him at his Randwick home.

The girl was seven or eight when she was first allegedly assaulted. Picture: Generic image

He said Mr Glasheen took her hand and used it to masturbate himself before telling her “don’t tell anyone” or words to that effect.

On another occasion the prosecutor said Mr Glasheen allegedly exposed himself to her while they were swimming in his backyard pool, grabbed her breasts and got her to give him what she would later learn was a “hand job”.

But the Crown prosecutor said she stopped when she heard someone coming because “she didn’t want to get into trouble”.

Another time the Crown alleges he was tickling her in a “playful way” when he reached under her shorts and sexually assaulted her.

In 2013, when the girl was 12 or 13, they were playing poker at his house when he started to tickle her and allegedly squeezed her breast and said words to the effect “they’re getting big”.

The Crown said for the first time she told him to stop.

The girl eventually told him to stop when she reached 12 or 13 years of age. Picture: Generic image

The prosecutor said counts 9-10 related to a second victim who Mr Glasheen allegedly exposed his penis to her twice at his Randwick house.

He said counts 11-12 and 13-14 related to the second victim and a third victim who were swimming in a pool at a holiday house Mr Glasheen had at Umina Beach on January 4, 2017.

The Crown prosecutor alleges he was playing in the pool with the girls, aged about 10 or 11, when he started picking them up by the groin area to throw them in the air.

He also allegedly pinched their breasts over their swimmers.

The prosecutor said one of the girls’ mothers became aware of that and saw the marks.

The court heard there was some dialogue between the girls’ mothers but it was not until they contacted the mother of the first victim in December 2017, when the “gravity” of the alleged offending became clear.

Mr Glasheen visited Woy Woy Police Station in April 2018 when he was arrested and later charged.

However in his opening address, Mr Glasheen’s barrister Simon Healy said his client flatly denied the allegations, which led to the first 10 charges, ever occurred.

Mr Healy said his client, also known as “Reg” because of his initials, did not dispute playing with the girls in the pool at Umina but said he never picked them up in the way they described.

Mr Healy also told the court Mr Glasheen did pinch them back in the course of horseplay in a “see how it feels like, see how you like it” way in response to him getting pinched.

He said there was no “sexual intent” and, at law, there was no act of indecency.

The trial continues tomorrow.