Mark Coker: 62-year-old man pleads not guilty to stalking four 12-year-old girls
A man has denied allegations he swam after a group of 12-year-old girls at Bondi Beach after stalking them around a shopping centre three days earlier.
Police & Courts
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A man has denied allegations he swam after a group of 12-year-old girls at Bondi Beach after stalking them around a shopping centre three days earlier.
Mark Coker faced Waverley Local Court on Tuesday, when his lawyer formally entered not guilty pleas to four counts of stalking or intimidation and a single charge of stopping on or near a pedestrian crossing.
Police allege in court documents the 62-year-old stalked and intimidated four girls with the intention of causing them fear of physical or mental harm between 1pm on January 24 and 2.30pm on January 27.
Police allege Coker followed the four girls through Westfield Bondi Junction about 1pm on January 24 before they ran away.
Later, about 6pm, Coker allegedly used a car to block the girls from walking across a pedestrian crossing at North Bondi, before yelling at them and driving away.
Three days passed before the same girls were swimming off Bondi Beach about 2.45pm last Monday, when they allegedly saw Coker watching them from the shore.
Police allege he then entered the water and swam towards the girls who fled and reported the incident to officers.
Following an investigation, officers arrested Coker on Arnold St in Queens Park about 6.40pm January 30.
He was taken to Waverley Police Station and charged.
Coker, who was listed on court documents as living in a vehicle in Queens Park, was granted bail last week, when magistrate Rodney Brender ordered him to report to North Sydney Police Station three times a week, not the eastern suburbs except for court, and not go near or contact the girls or any prosecution witnesses.
On Tuesday, magistrate Stephen Barlow adjourned the case until March.
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