Alric Lindsay 
By Alric Lindsay
A man was convicted of five counts of indecent assault against a 14-year-old girl, after Justice Palmer (Actg.) delivered his verdict in the Grand Court today, August 21, 2026. The trial was heard by judge alone and concluded with closing submissions on August 19, 2026.
Delivering his reasons orally in open court over almost two hours, Justice Palmer found the complainant to be a truthful witness. “Having weighed the strengths and weaknesses as I have outlined them, I find that [the complainant] was a truthful witness on the essential allegations,” he said.
Justice Palmer was careful to say what that finding did not extend to. For example, regarding conflicting details on positioning in the bed shared by the man and two girls, Justice Palmer did “not find every peripheral detail or every reconstruction or position or orientation and sequence to be accurate.” What he did find was that the young girl “reliably identified the defendant and truthfully described the five kinds of conduct charged… in the indictment.”
What satisfied him, he said, was “her prompt core complaint, the stable distinction between the external contact and the absence of penetration, and her maintenance of the essential acts, even when challenging.”
The case turned on the complainant’s credibility, supported to a lesser extent by a second prosecution witness. On the defence submission that the second witness was “effectively not a witness,” having only heard sounds and adopted the complainant’s account, the judge neither accepted nor rejected the argument outright — he answered it by confining what her evidence could be used for.
“I also find that [the second witness] is speaking the truth about what she personally saw and heard,” Justice Palmer said. “However, her evidence must be confined to its proper limits.” She had not witnessed the precise genital or breast contact charged, and much of her knowledge came from what the complainant had told her.
Rather than treating that as a reason to disbelieve her, Justice Palmer treated it as a mark in her favour: her “willingness to acknowledge what she did not see and the clarification in re-examination support rather than undermine” her account.
Justice Palmer also addressed the risk of the two accounts having converged. The girls had spoken about the allegations more than once and had been questioned by family members before their police interviews — circumstances creating what he described as “a genuine possibility of influence or contamination.” For that reason, Justice Palmer treated the second witness’s evidence as independent only where it concerned what she had herself perceived.
On the suggestion that the account had been fabricated — said to be linked to a wish for greater freedom at home — Justice Palmer rejected it. He accepted the complainant’s evidence that her mother’s home involved a poor relationship with her mother, financial hardship, insufficient food at times, and a fear of going into foster care. That, he found, left her “choosing between several unsatisfactory” options rather than furnishing a motive to invent allegations. Crown Counsel from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions had submitted at trial that the suggestion was undermined by the evidence, and that there was no apparent incentive to lie.
Defence counsel Prathna Bodden had emphasised the high standard of proof and warned against allowing sympathy to displace it, arguing that the acts described could not have taken place in a small shared bed without waking the second witness, who said she had seen nothing. Justice Palmer did not resolve the competing accounts of who lay where. He held that he did not need to: his finding rested on the essential acts rather than on the precise positions, orientation and sequence, which he expressly declined to determine.
Defence counsel had also taken the court to the complainant’s recorded interview, noting that the girl appeared “uncomfortable” and that there was a “pause” when asked about telling lies. Defence counsel declined to decide the case on that footing at all. He said he did not regard the ABE interview video, or the presence or absence of emotion in it, as a reliable method of determining truthfulness — assessing instead how the material propositions were answered in cross-examination, and whether there were inconsistencies or discrepancies in the evidence given.
The man did not give evidence at trial and relied on his police interview, in which he calmly denied the allegations. Justice Palmer treated several features of that interview as points in the defendant’s favour: his “repeated and forceful denials in a lengthy interview,” and the fact that he “asked the officer to investigate family background” he appeared to be suggesting might be linked to the matter. “Those matters were in his favour,” Justice Palmer said. He noted that the questioning had been “robust and at times interruptive,” and made allowance for that.
But Justice Palmer added that the reverse did not follow either: “consistency of denial does not itself create reason to doubt” where the Crown’s evidence made him sure. As to the decision not to testify, he was explicit — he did not “draw an adverse inference against the man from his decision not to testify.”
Turning to the counts, Justice Palmer directed himself that each had to be considered separately. On count one, Justice Palmer was sure the defendant had deliberately made the contact described, which he found intrinsically sexual and an indecent assault; the complainant was 14 and could not consent. “I therefore find the defendant guilty on count one.” Justice Palmer returned guilty verdicts on counts two, three, four and five in turn, saying he was satisfied so that he was sure that the Crown had proved every element of each offence.
Sentencing was not concluded today. The man remains on bail pending his sentencing in November. He will also be required to wear an electronic monitor during this time.
Note to readers
This case is subject to orders made by the trial judge, Palmer J (Actg.), in open court. Nothing can be published to directly or indirectly identify the names of the complainant, the man and any witnesses.
