Keith Athol Bates-Willie: Defence slams 'cherry picked' evidence in trial
Prosecution arguments about the alleged grooming tendencies of a retired Hobart teacher relied on the same selective-evidence techniques used to create reality TV villains, a jury has been told.
Prosecution arguments about the alleged grooming tendencies of a retired Hobart teacher relied on the same selective-evidence techniques used to create reality TV villains, a Supreme Court jury has been told.
Delivering her closing addresses in the trial of former high school drama teacher Keith Athol Bates-Willie on Tuesday, defence counsel, Jessie Sawyer, said the Crown had “cherry picked” witness evidence to claim her client had a sexual interest in young boys which he acted upon by touching them without their consent.
Mr Bates-Willie, 71, has pleaded not guilty to 14 charges – including rape, indecent assault, and the persistent sexual abuse of a child – allegedly committed from the late 1970s to the mid-2000s against multiple students from Rosetta High, Kingston High, and Rosny College.
On Tuesday, Ms Sawyer said while prosecutors had attempted to portray the former educator as someone with a preference for exclusively male company, a significant proportion of his theatre-focused student “favourites” were female, as were the guests who overnighted at his home.
And contrary to claims Mr Bates-Willie regularly initiated suggestive conversations with boys during the course of his teaching career, Ms Sawyer said her client’s co-ed, classroom-based sex education lessons included topics relating to the teenage development of both genders.
In asking the jury to reject the tendency arguments put forward by the Crown, Ms Sawyer said prosecutors had followed a reality TV blueprint of “cherry picking” footage to portray people in a certain way.
“They’ve produced the trial to make Mr Bates out to be the villain,” she told the court.
“[But] without editing, these tendencies haven’t been made out.”
Following three weeks of evidence from the accused — and sometimes emotional testimony from complainants — Ms Sawyer urged jury members not let emotion cloud their deliberations, or to feel sorry for the historic personal circumstances of witnesses.
Ms Sawyer said while some on the jury might consider it distasteful that Mr Bates-Willie went on to have sexual relations with adult former pupils, it could have no bearing on their decision-making process.
The accused’s defence team also asked the jury to consider whether the complaints of former students had been motivated by the prospect of a “handsome payout” from a pending civil action, and whether the testimony of one witness could be believed after he retained the stage name provided by the man who allegedly raped him.
Mr Sawyer said the professional actor told the trial he had given up an idyllic life in Queensland in the early 1980s after agreeing to a telephone request from his former drama teacher for urgent assistance delivering a Hobart theatre production – and then called into question his demeanour on the stand.
“That’s not the conduct of someone who has been abused by the person on the other end of the phone,” she said.
“You might ask yourselves, was this his greatest role yet?”
Justice Stephen Estcourt is due to deliver his summing up to the jury on Wednesday.
The trial continues.
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Originally published as Keith Athol Bates-Willie: Defence slams 'cherry picked' evidence in trial
