Sex-abuse accused declines to testify

The defence closed its case in the trial of former Marylands School brother Bernard Kevin McGrath after calling one witness for less than 30 minutes of evidence over a video link from the North Island.

McGrath himself will not give evidence in the three-week trial.

His defence counsel, Raoul Neave, told the High Court jury they had already heard from the accused in several hours of "cross-examination" recorded on video by two police officers.

McGrath, 58, faces more than 40 sexual abuse charges relating to 16 boys who were pupils at the school where he was a teacher in the 1970s.

The defence called a former woman teacher, whose name was suppressed. She said she worked with McGrath sometimes for team teaching and she never saw him "physically assault, strike, or abuse those children".

She would never have tolerated it. She knew some of the alleged victims in the trial when they were boys.

She described one as an "energetic, happy, vocal, livewire".

Another was a scalliwag whose pastime was "accumulating cigarettes from wherever - he was the school smoker. You would never get a straight answer from him".

Questioned by Crown prosecutor Chris Lange, she denied a suggestion from McGrath, made in his video interview, that she had wanted a relationship with him.

"It's ludicrous. No disrespect to the defendant, I'm sorry but I would never have regarded the man in that way."

The trial then moved straight to closing addresses by opposing counsel.

Mr Lange asked the jury to consider the charges dispassionately.

"From time to time there are trials which can evoke a considerable amount of emotion, sympathy and prejudice. This is one of those trials."

The real issue was whether they considered the boys were credible and their evidence reliable.

"The Crown says this trial is not some impossible task because it concerns events that occurred 30 years ago."

The defence had sought to make a lot out of details of dates and times. It was normal for people to have trouble recalling dates and times, but that did not mean events did not occur or memory was unreliable, he said.

The defence was to present its closing arguments later yesterday, and Justice Chisholm will sum up on Monday morning before the jury retires to consider its verdicts.

* A hearing will be held next month to determine whether a retired Catholic brother accused of sexually abusing a boy in the late 1970s will face trial.

John Louis Stevenson, 66, faces five charges of indecently assaulting a boy, aged between 12 and 16, which he denies.

In the Wellington District Court yesterday Judge Anne Gaskell remanded Stevenson in custody until April 13 for a depositions hearing.

- NZPA