Indecency charges dismissed

Press, 24 April 1980, Page 4

Indecency charges dismissed

A Christchurch physical education and judo instructor had charges of indecently assaulting two 14-year-old boys dismissed by Judge Bradford in the District Court yesterday. The defendant, John William Boniface, aged 35, was alleged by the police to have indecently • assaulted the two boys, who were members of a judo class he instructed at Christchurch Polytechnic, in their sleeping bags in a tent during a two-night camping trip on which he had taken them in the Oxford area on January 22 and 23. The defendant denied both charges. The Judge dismissed the charges without calling on defence evidence. He . accepted the submissions of defence counsel (Mr K. N. Hampton) that a prima facie case against the defendant had not been established. The Judge said the evidence given by the two boys contained a number of discrepancies and conflicts. He said that for such a grave charge there must be corro-

r boration of an offence by independent testimony. He said the boys’ delay of more than two weeks in making a complaint was also fatal to the prosecution’s case. He said, however, that the defendant had been “stupid, misguided, and foolish” to put himself into the situation where he took two young boys to a camp site and slept with them in the same tent.'

He accepted that the defendant did touch the boys on their thighs. Detective Sergeant B. Roswell prosecuted and called seven witnesses.

The prosecution’s case was that the defendant had taken the boys to the camp and committed the offences after they retired to bed in the tent.

In cross-examination one boy said the other had been reprimanded by the defendant for his behaviour in a judo class. He said that after discussing the alleged assaults two weeks afterwards, his companion had said he could make the defendant pay for this, and “get money out of him.”