Victim faces Narara ‘Ghillie’ suit rapist in court
The child victim of a heinous attack in which she was dragged into bushes by a man in camouflage and sexually assaulted has faced him in court for the first time.
Central Coast
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Bravery has a name.
And while legal reasons mean that name can never be made public, it does not diminish the courage a young girl has shown as she stared down the monster who dragged her into bushes and sexually assaulted her as she walked to school when she was just 12 years old.
For the first time the victim of the assault perpetrated by the man who would later become dubbed the Narara “ghillie suit rapist” took the witness stand at Gosford District Court and recounted how the assault had affected her.
The contents of her victim impact statement have been suppressed so as to not cause her any further undue distress by being reported in the media.
But the girl showed the court she had more courage and internal fortitude at her tender age than her 33-year-old attacker could ever muster in a lifetime.
“Tell your client to open his eyes and face the reality of his offending,” Judge David Willson bellowed from the bench when the offender refused to look at the girl.
“You may be ashamed but keep your eyes open. If he keeps closing his eyes I will adjourn every time he does.”
After the girl finished reading Judge Wilson commended her.
“It took enormous courage, you have come face-to-face twice with a man who’s evil and on both occasions you have shown great courage, you should be proud of yourself,” he said.
The man, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, was dressed in a camouflage military-style ghillie suit when he approached the girl from behind armed with a tree branch and a knife.
The court heard the man, of Woongarrah, had been watching her walk to school for a couple of weeks along the path between Carrington and Reeves streets at Narara before the heinous attack about 7.45am on May 15, 2017.
“She said ‘stop, stop stop,’ she was telling him not to hurt her with the stick,” documents tendered at previous court appearances said.
“He forced her into the bush saying, ‘don’t scream, or I will hurt you’.”
After the attack the traumatised child ran to school crying and told a family friend in the canteen what happened.
“She was dirty and dishevelled … she was crying and shaking … she had swollen marks on her wrists and ankles,” court documents said.
The terrifying attack sparked a large scale police manhunt with vigilante groups pledging on social media to patrol nearby parks and reserves.
The State Crime Command’s Sex Crimes Squad formed Strike Force Garawan to investigate the incident.
The man, however, was a “clean skin” and was not even one of the cops’ main suspects with detectives ruling out up to a dozen potential other suspects and known sex offenders.
He was first questioned by police more than a month later on June 28, 2017, and had his mobile phone seized after another girl, aged 11, told detectives he had allegedly exposed himself to her several times between October and April.
The court heard on one occasion, the father-of-three pulled her onto his lap, indecently assaulted her and later offered the girl $50 to watch an explicit video while his wife was in the shower.
It comes as explosive new evidence was tendered in court at his sentencing hearing on Friday that officers had since located a hidden camera he had set up in his bathroom since 2007.
The Crown tendered five witness statements, along with still images taken from the footage, of five people who had been captured by the video camera.
Judge Wilson asked why he had not been charged with those offences but the court heard they were summary matters that could only be dealt with in a Local Court, and as such, the statute of limitations had expired.
The mother of the then 11-year-old victim also took the stand and read from a psychologist’s report about how his offending had deeply affected her.
Afterwards Judge Wilson also acknowledged her courage.
“In years to come (the man) will still be in prison, you will have your daughter and you can look back at this with great pride,” he told her.
Several times the judge asked the man’s barrister if he would like to take the witness stand and give evidence to acknowledge his behaviour or demonstrate remorse.
At one point the judge asked: “are we left in the dark again because your client is too scared to give evidence?”.
At a previous appearance the man pleaded guilty to 10 counts of kidnapping, indecent and aggravated sexual assault of a child under 16, grooming a child and producing child abuse material.
A further seven charges will be taken into account when he is sentenced next Tuesday.