Man admits enticing charge

Press, 26 July 1984, Page 4

Man admits enticing charge

A sickness beneficiary, in the District Court yesterday, admitted a charge of enticing away a girl, now aged 15, who was said at a previous court appearance to have accompanied him for 18 months. Evidence of the girl at the hearing of depositions of evidence of prosecution witnesses last month was that

the defendant, Clifford Frederick Ward, aged 39, had travelled New Zealand with her, rented houses in Otago, and that she had claimed a de facto couple’s benefit from the Social Welfare Department in Dunedin. Ward was to have faced trial by jury yesterday on the charge, that on October 14, 1982, he unlawfully enticed away the girl, who was aged 13 at the time, with intent to deprive the girl’s mother of her. Upon Ward’s guilty plea to this charge yesterday, Judge Kerr remanded him in custody to August 1 for sentence on this charge and on a charge of having sexual intercourse with the girl, then aged 14, between October 14, 1982, and November 1. 1983. He had pleaded guilty to the sexual intercourse offence after the depositions hearing. Evidence at this hearing had been that the girl saw Ward in Cathedral Square, Christchurch, after school in October, 1982, and told him that she was going to run away. He suggested she accompany him to Wellington. Subsequently they travelled to Kaitaia and then travelled a circuit of the South Island. The girl asserted that Ward had forced her to have sexual intercourse in Hokitika and again in Dunedin. They had rented houses in Dunedin and other districts in Otago. The girl said in evidence that she had not left Ward because she was scared of him, and he had made threats to her, and to harm her mother and family. After further travek she found that she was pregnant while in Timaru, where

Ward had a job. A baby son i was born in May this year. In a written statement' Ward allegedly said that he, had found the girl under a; Christchurch river bridge. ‘ She told him that she had come from Auckland with a friend but the friend had run out on her and taken some of her money, and that she had nowhere to stay. He invited her to accompany him to Dunedin. They began living as man and wife a week later. They had had sex about once every three weeks but the girl had asked him for intercourse. After . Ward’s plea of guilty on the enticing charge yesterday the prosecutor (Mr B. M. Stanaway) said that no indictment would be presented against Ward on two other charges of unlawfully taking away two girls, both aged 14, on May 3 thk year, with intent to deprive a parent or guardian of the girls. Ward had denied these charges. He was to have stood trial by jury on these charges, in which evidence at the depositions hearing was that the girk had left home for school on May 3 but neither returned home. Both had left home previously. One girl spoke to the defendant about running away and he had offered her somewhere to stay. He had taken both to stay at a woman’s house. The girk had given themselves up after a night spent in a hockey shelter in Hagley Park. The defendant told the police that he had helped the girk, after learning they had run away, taking them to a woman’s flat so she could “drum” some sense into them.