Bail granted and ‘Not Guilty’ verdict for charges of Child Sexual Assault and Aggravated Indecent Assault

Our client is a 38-year-old father of two children. His son was aged 8 years old and his daughter was aged 10.

Due to financial difficulties, he was planning on moving his family from Campbelltown to Newcastle.
Before this could occur, his daughter made a complaint to Police that he had sexually assaulted her a number of times over a three-year period.

Police charged our client with Sexual Intercourse with a Child and Aggravated Indecent Assault. He was refused bail.

Our client’s wife engaged us to make a bail application at Campbelltown Local Court.

We immediately began preparing. We obtained a letter from his wife where she set out that our client could not have committed the alleged offences.

We were ultimately able to persuade a Magistrate to grant our client bail on strict conditions. Following this, we began preparing for Trial. Our client was distraught and denied all of the allegations.

We obtained birthday and Christmas cards which the daughter had prepared to our client during and after the allegations which spoke highly of him and their relationship.

We also had our client’s son speak to Police. He told Police that a week prior to the complaint being made, his sister had told him that she would find a way to get rid of her father and prevent them moving to Newcastle.

We also subpoenaed records with FACS and the ‘Kids Helpline’ which recorded information about the complaint.

Usually, this cannot be accessed due to the sexual assault communications privilege. However, we successfully applied to the Court for leave to access these documents.

The Trial proceeded at Campbelltown District Court.

We cross-examined the daughter at length about her lack of complaint as well as her motivation for making the complaint.

We also elicited inconsistencies between her complaint to Police and what she told FACS and the Kids Helpline.

After almost a week of deliberations, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of ‘not guilty’ on all charges.

Our client and his family were overjoyed with the result.