Canterbury businessman earlier charged with violating 4yo now charged with paying underage girls for sex

Canterbury businessman John Michael Condon, 61, has been charged with paying underage girls for sex.

Name suppression has lapsed for a Canterbury businessman facing a raft of sex charges, including sexual violaton of a 4-year-old girl.

John Michael Condon, 61, has pleaded not guilty to sexually violating a 4-year old girl between January 1, 2012 and January 7, 2012; and to trying to indecently assault a 3-year-old girl on October 19, 2014.

Condon also faces charges of indecent assault and committing an indecent act on girls aged 13 and 14, and one charge of raping a girl aged between 14 and 15.

He was granted name suppression at an earlier hearing and remanded in custody.

Condon, listed as a company director from Lansdowne in the Selwyn district, reappeared in the Christchurch District Court today, when police laid 10 new charges, all alleged to have occurred between January 1, 2006 and July 1, 2007.

They include three charges, relating to three girls aged 13 and 14, of encouraging them to "provide commercial sexual services" to him.

Condon also faces charges of indecent assault and committing an indecent act on girls aged 13 and 14, and one charge of raping a girl aged between 14 and 15.

Defence counsel Margaret Sewell asked for Condon to be remanded in custody for an electronic monitoring bail application hearing.

Judge Sharon McAuslan remanded him in custody to appear in court via audio visual link on March 9.