Port Stephens dance teacher Ryan Shane Hards has bail restrictions changed
Ryan Shane Hards has successfully sought to remove his curfew and reduce the number of days he needs to report to police.
Police & Courts
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A Port Stephens dance teacher who successfully sought bail on child sex charges because a wheat allergy left him vulnerable in jail has had further bail restrictions eased.
Ryan Shane Hards briefly faced Newcastle Local Court on Wednesday where he successfully applied to have his night curfew deleted and changed to him not being in a licensed premises from 8pm until 6am.
His bail reporting was also reduced to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Hards will also now not be allowed to be in the company of any person aged under 18 unless he is in the company of some aged over 25, a condition which was strengthened from not being in the company of anyone under 21.
Court documents said Hards, who is living in Sydney and his prohibited from entering Port Stephens, had been offered employment which involved after hours work and some travel after hours.
The bail variations were not opposed by prosecutors.
Hards successfully applied to be released on bail in July after he argued he was vulnerable because a wheat allergy left him unable to eat prison food and meant he was surviving on fruit and potato chips.
The court also heard the prosecution case against Hards was complex, and included five alleged victims and a significant amount of phone records.
The Corlette man was charged by detectives from Strike Force Wairakei after a three-month investigation into his alleged inappropriate behaviour towards students.
Police allege Hards sexually abused five girls – four of them his students – between 2013 and 2018.
In detailed court attendance notices, police outlined the extent of the allegations against him.
Police allege Hards indecently assaulted a 12-year-old student on two occasions between 2013 and 2014, at one time stroking her bare breast and at another her bare vagina.
Police allege Hards twice had sex with a different student, aged 15, in 2014, and indecently assaulted a third girl that same year by touching her breast and vagina.
In 2017 police allege Hards had sex with an underage girl on a cruise ship in waters off Jervis Bay, and in 2018 they allege he had sex with another girl, aged 17, who was under his authority as his dance student.
Hards was aged 19 to 25 at the time of the alleged offences.
He is facing 12 charges, including three counts of aggravated indecent assault; three counts of indecent assault of a person under 16 years of age, aggravated sex assault – victim under the age of 16 years; aggravated sex assault; assault with act of indecency; common assault; and sexual intercourse reckless as to consent.
Hards has yet to formally enter any plea but his lawyer previously told the court he “absolutely and categorically denies” the allegations and intended to fight them at trial.
Hards co-owned and worked as artistic director at The Collective Dance Academy at the time of his arrest, but the offences are alleged to have occurred at a different dance school at Taylors Beach. He also worked as a real estate agent across the Port Stephens area.
Hards will reappear in Newcastle Local Court on December 15.
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