NSW Police paid a Hunter man’s $45,000 legal bill after a failed child sex case against him, only months before he was charged again and jailed for similar offences against another young girl.
The man, who was jailed in 2017 and cannot be identified because of a suppression order relating to the failed 2012 trial, was awarded costs after a NSW Supreme Court judge found “deficiencies” in the police investigation before the first case.
But the victim in the 2012 trial and her mother say the case illustrates the difficulties facing child sex victims in the criminal justice system and the need for state governments to act on more than 80 recommendations for change made by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
“He’s a paedophile. He’s in jail because he’s a paedophile. He’s turned around and come up with smoke and mirrors to get taxpayers’ money to pay his legal costs but nothing changes the fact that he has sexually abused children, including my daughter,” said the mother of the 2012 trial victim.
“It’s appalling, absolutely appalling that he’s been able to get money for things he should have been in jail for. I don’t understand it.”
The man was awarded costs after telling police the child victim in the 2012 case accused him of indecently assaulting her to “get back at” him and his family. He alleged the young girl and other primary school-aged children had bullied his child and he had complained to their school.
In his case for costs the man alleged police failed to investigate “the possible motive of the complainant to make a false allegation” against him, and it was “a matter which was an important part” of his case for costs against police, a Supreme Court judge found.
A Newcastle magistrate who found the man not guilty of indecently assaulting the girl after a trial in 2012 rejected the claim for costs. He rejected the man’s claim that police had conducted an unreasonable and improper investigation, finding that while it had been “conducted in a piecemeal manner… and certainly could have been conducted better”, the prosecution had been “fairly conducted”.
One year later the man appealed to the NSW Supreme Court against the magistrate’s costs decision.
He argued that although he made police aware of a “possible motive at the outset” for the indecent assault allegation against him, they did not question the girl or school representatives about it.
The man also argued police did not take statements from his wife and one of his children who corroborated his version of events.
The Supreme Court judge in 2015 found that the magistrate was in error in rejecting the man’s costs application, and the matter was referred back to Newcastle Local Court.
In December 2015 a magistrate ordered NSW Police to pay the man’s $45,000 legal bill for the failed 2012 trial and gave police one month to pay. Less than six months later the man was charged with historical child sex offences against another girl. He was found guilty of a number of offences and jailed in 2017.
The mother of the victim in the 2012 trial wept as she recalled the not guilty decision in her daughter’s case, and again when she was advised by the Newcastle Herald this week of the reasons for the costs order against the police.
Although she was made aware in 2016 of a possible costs order in the man’s favour, it was only confirmed by the Herald earlier this month.
“It’s just rubbish what he’s said about bullying. It’s the kind of thing a paedophile says when he’s finally caught,” she said.
The not guilty decision in 2012 was terrible, she said.
“For him to be found not guilty when we know there are other victims who won’t come forward, was just the worst thing. The one job of a parent is to protect your child. I felt I’d failed because he did what he did to my daughter, and then was found not guilty,” she said.
She was in court in 2017 when he was convicted by a jury and jailed. She said the impact of the sexual abuse and court process would have a lifelong impact on her daughter. The suppression order put in place in 2012 added to her family’s feeling that the criminal justice system is weighted in favour of child sex offenders.
“The carnage he has caused in people’s lives is not reflected in that single conviction,” the mother of the victim in the 2012 trial said.
“The one positive is that he’s finally in jail but it needs to be for much longer.”
In a speech in March, 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse chair Justice Peter McClellan said entrenched barriers against sexual assault victims remained in the criminal justice system.
“It appears that, although many more complainants are coming forward, the chances of an offender being acquitted have risen rather than fallen,” Justice McClellan said in a speech titled “Seeking ‘justice for victims’.”
“The question... is why do the outcomes for sexual assault differ so markedly from the outcomes for other crimes?”
In August, 2017 the royal commission released a landmark criminal justice report with 85 recommendations for change.
