Man accused of abusing five cousins

A man faces 27 charges related to the sexual abuse of five cousins.

Warning: This story contains evidence of a sexual nature which some readers may find upsetting.

“I felt like if I screamed I would wake the house up, but if I didn’t, I’d be in more trouble.”

A court has heard how a 12-year-old girl woke to find her aunty’s boyfriend allegedly attempting to put his hands into her pants as she lay on the floor, next to her sleeping grandmother.

The man is on trial for sexually abusing five cousins, his partner’s nieces and nephews, over about three years.

It is alleged many of the incidents happened during family events, including after communion at a family home in Kawerau, after returning from church in Hamilton, and following the burial of a family member.

The most serious charges relate to oral sex the Tauranga Crown says the defendant forced a teenage boy to perform - including when the pair were doing chores after the family had shared communion at home.

The Crown case is that the 26-year-old sexually and physically assaulted and sexually violated the cousins who were aged between 10 and 15 at the time.

Crown Prosecutor Catherine Harold outlined the 27 charges the defendant faces in the Tauranga District Court today.

They include times when the defendant allegedly attempted to touch genitals, smack bottoms, and grope the various children while they slept in their grandmother’s home.

The Crown says it was a whanau house, “with different family living there at different times,” including the defendant and his partner.

Some of the offending is alleged to have taken place at other homes connected to the family and the defendant.

The court heard evidence from the first child complainant in the trial, who was 12 at the time, in a video interview she gave after the alleged offending.

She told the interviewer the first time her aunty’s partner had tried to touch her she’d been asleep next to her nan in the lounge, and there had been about 11 people in the house at the time.

She alleges when she woke to find him assaulting her and didn’t know what to do.

She’d been wearing trackpants and a hoodie to keep warm, as she didn’t sleep with blankets. She had rolled over towards her grandmother’s bed and he stopped.

The girl alleged it happened again, this time early one morning.

She said, “this time I didn’t feel frozen, I moved right away.”

But the most serious of the alleged offending against her came on a further occasion when she had followed his instruction to come out to the “man cave”, a small shed in the backyard.

She had been going to get oranges to make her nan some juice, when the man had told her to “come”, and she’d gone with him to the small shed.

She said the man removed her pants and sexually violated her.

In her video evidence she said this time she again “froze”.

“All I know is that I felt scared and afraid of what happened.”

She said she told the defendant she wouldn’t tell anyone about it.

“He wouldn’t let me go but I said I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Under cross-examination, the girl told defence lawyer David Bates she’d heard her aunty, the man’s partner, calling her name while the offending took place.

She had left and gone to her aunty.

Bates asked her why she hadn’t told her aunty what had happened.

“I was scared she might give me a hiding.”

Bates asked the girl if she and her cousins had been making up stories to get their aunty’s partner into trouble.

The girl said that wasn’t true.

During cross-examination, Bates also asked why she had gone with him to the shed, in the dark, if she’d already been so frightened of him due to his earlier attempts to touch her.

The girl said she didn’t know why she’d agreed to go.

The court also watched the video interview the second complainant gave to police.

The court heard the 11-year-old girl describe how when she’d first lived with the defendant, at a different home to the previous complainant, she’d enjoyed him taking her for bike rides.

But then he’d begun to “go creepy”, and had started to smack her and her cousin’s and sister’s bottoms.

She said he would “watch” her after he’d been to the toilet, and would take out his genitalia and play with it in front her.

“I didn’t like it,” she said.

She also described being physically assaulted by the defendant, being smacked on her arms and hands.

She’d asked to go back to living at her nan’s house, she said.

The trial continues before Judge David Cameron.