No pleas made on sex counts

Press, 21 May 1988, Page 6

No pleas made on sex counts

No pleas were entered by a man, aged 37, facing 10 charges involving indecencies, sexual violation and rape, on three girls, who appeared before Judge Fraser in the District Court yesterday. The defendant, represented by Mr M. J. Knowles, was remanded in custody to May 27. Interim suppression of name was continued.

On his first appearance last week, the defendant faced charges of indecently assaulting a girl, aged 15, attempting to sexually violate her by raping her, and sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection. The offences are alleged to have occurred on various dates between January, 1986, and May, this year. Yesterday seven new charges were laid against

the defendant involving two sisters of the first complainant. These allege that he indecently assaulted a girl, aged between 12 and 13, and being a male permitted her to do indecent acts on him. The other charges ' involve an attempt to sexually violate a girl, aged 15, by raping her, sexually violating her by having an unlawful sexual connection with her, and indecent assault. The seven new offences are alleged to have taken place on various dates between January, 1987, and May, this year. OFFENSIVE BEHAVIOUR Two students who dropped their trousers in a crowded city lounge bar were each convicted and fined $lOO. Andrew Searle Bendall,

and Martin Sinclair Powley, both aged 20, admitted charges of behaving in an offensive manner in the Coachman Inn on the night of May 14. The incidents took place in a bar full of people, including women, while the pair were drinking with friends, said De-tective-Sergeant R. Homan. According to both young men the matter was treated as a joke, he said. A duty solicitor (Mr W. Rosenberg) said the defendants had been dared by their companions to do a strip tease and they took up the challenge. Nobody in the bar complained but they were removed with such force that Powley had his wrist broken, said Mr Rosenberg.