Paedophile makes bid for freedom after molesting two little girls

A repeat child sex offender, previously jailed for raping a five-year-old and fined for possessing bestiality products, has returned to court to argue he’s innocent of molesting two young girls.

A “BRAZEN” child sex offender previously jailed for orally raping a five-year-old, and currently behind bars for molesting two little girls, has returned to court in an attempt to prove his innocence.

Bruce Paton Anderson, 61, was jailed in January this year after a Supreme Court jury found him guilty of indecently assaulting a 10 or 11-year-old girl four times in 2006 or 2007 and the aggravated sexual assault of a seven-year-old after a pony ride on his property in 2007.

While sentencing, Justice Helen Wood slammed the George Town man’s “arrogance and a brazen attitude”, his “degrading and humiliating” crimes, and noted he’d found one of the children’s attempts to hide from him “amusing”.

He’s currently serving a minimum jail term of two years and 10 months.

Bruce Paton Anderson is attempting to prove his innocence after being jailed for a series of sexual abuse offences towards children.

On Monday, Anderson’s lawyer Todd Kovavic argued in the Court of Criminal Appeal that the jury should have considered the second girl had painful urination from the pony ride rather than a sexual assault.

Mr Kovavic also argued in the appeal against conviction that Anderson had a “forensic disadvantage” as one of the trial witnesses had died, another couldn’t be located, and police and business records had been lost over time.

The lawyer also said the first child hadn’t told police what happened until 2017 – a decade-long delay.

“There was significant forensic disadvantage in such a delay,” he said, claiming Anderson had missed out on cross-examining an “exculpatory witness”.

Bruce Paton Anderson outside the Launceston Magistrates Court in 2011.

However, in response to a question from Justice Michael Brett, Mr Kovavic said he didn’t know what the witness would have said had she entered the witness box.

Anderson is also arguing he suffered a “substantial miscarriage of justice” by claiming Justice Wood delivered an “excessively long”, “repetitive” and “biased” summing up to the jury.

But lawyer John Ranson, acting for the State, addressed the matter of delay by arguing the first child “felt really embarrassed and didn’t feel like she had anyone she could tell”, and that the second child’s complaint was lodged with police straight away.

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He said the complainants were “very clear about what they said” and had made concessions about time frames and the sequence of events “where it has been necessary”.

Responding to Anderson’s complaints about Justice Wood, Mr Ranson said “she’s done nothing wrong”.

He said Justice Wood “may have gone into more detail than other judges might”, but that didn’t mean her directions to the jury had been affected or that her summing up had “tainted their verdict”.

Anderson was also previously fined in 2012 for possessing child exploitation material and 20 counts of possessing bestiality products.

The court will deliver its decision at a date to be determined.