Jury Hears Closing Speeches in Grand Court Child-Sex Trial as Defendant Re-Pleaded on Amended Counts

By Alric Lindsay

Today, August 6, 2026, the jury in the trial of a man accused of sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl heard closing speeches from the prosecution and the defence.   

At the start of the day, Crown Counsel from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions  put an amended indictment to the defendant. He was re-arraigned on three counts — assault by penetration and indecent assault, contrary to sections 132A and 132 of the Penal Code — and pled not guilty to each. DPP Crown Counsel explained that the dates of the alleged offending had been narrowed on the basis of the evidence the jury had heard, and reminded the jury that the burden of proof rested with the prosecution throughout: it was for the Crown to make them sure.

The prosecution

In closing, DPP Crown Counsel told the jury that the case turned on the quality of the child’s evidence, and urged them to assess it clinically, without sympathy, bias or prejudice. The child, it was said, had been consistent on the central allegation, even though the number of occasions she described had varied — she had at one point said it happened three or four times and later said she believed it was once or twice. Rather than embellish, DPP Crown Counsel argued, she had reflected and reduced the number, which spoke to her honesty.

The accounts the child had given to family members were not independent corroboration, DPP Crown Counsel accepted, but they showed that her reports had been consistent, which went to her reliability and credibility. On identification, it was submitted that the child knew the defendant well — she was a regular visitor to the home and played with the other children there — and that, although the room was dark, she had said she could make out his familiar face; she had also said he was the only adult man present. DPP Crown Counsel said the jury had to be sure the offences had occurred as she described within the amended period.

The defence

For the defence, Keith Myers reminded the jury that the Crown had to make them sure, and that anything less had to be resolved in the defendant’s favour. “If you think he may have done it, it is not guilty,” he said; gut feeling was not enough.

Myers argued that the allegation had to be seen against a family in conflict, with competing interests over the child. He pointed to evidence that the child’s mother had not believed the allegation and had said, in effect, that others were not going to take her child away. The chain of disclosure — from the child to one relative, to another, to the grandmother — was not independent corroboration, he submitted: “if you start off with a lie and you tell somebody else, it always remains a lie.”

He questioned whether the child could have recognised anyone in a room since it was very dark, with a single window, and pointed to the shifting account of how many times the alleged offending had happened, urging the jury to make allowances for a young child’s sense of number and time but also to weigh the inconsistencies.

Myers noted that some of the striking words the child had used — such as “stalk,” “molestation” and “torture” — were words she said she had got from an adult. And he reminded the jury that the defendant had denied the allegations both when he gave evidence and in his police interview, saying he had not touched her; the question of why the child might have made the allegation, Myers said, was not the test — the jury simply had to be sure.

Acting Justice Palmer will give his closing summary on August 7, 2026, with a jury verdict to follow.