Sexual-abuse charges to be denied

Press, 23 February 1989, Page 19

Sexual-abuse charges to be denied

Denials of 11 charges of the sexual abuse of children would be given in defence evidence, counsel for the man accused of the offences told Mr Justice Holland and a jury in the High Court yesterday.

Counsel, Mr Peter Dyhrberg, said the accused would not give

evidence. “The defence is a relatively straight forward, clear-cut one, that he did not do any of the alleged deeds, that it is not true that he committed any of the acts asserted in the charges, and that if they

did happen, it wasn’t him,” Mr Dyhrberg said. The name of the

accused, aged 36, has been suppressed. He has pleaded not guilty to charges involving six children, three of them his own and three of a neighbour’s family. The man is charged with raping a girl, inducing a girl under 12 years to do an indecent act on

him, inducing a girl aged between 12 and 16 years to do an indecent act on him, four charges of indecently assaulting girls aged under 12, three charges that being a male he indecently assaulted a boy aged under 12, and one charge of sexually violating a girl. Mr Dyhrberg said evi-

dence from the accused would be that during 1986, as a result of the rift with a neighbouring family, there was a “very negative attitude” between the father of that family and the accused. This attitude was “at a fairly intense or passionate level.”

"He asks you to consider whether that may have had a bearing on the fact that these allegations seem to have come forward; some of them being from children within the (neighbour’s) family,” Mr Dyhrberg told the jury.

The hearing continues today.