KEY POINTS:
Historic child sex abuse charges against a prominent Canterbury man were prompted by his visiting the complainant as an adult and suggesting they take up where they left off, a jury in the High Court at Christchurch was told yesterday.
The man, whose identity is protected by a raft of suppression orders banning even such details as his age, is alleged to have initiated sex with the complainant when she was aged 7 or 8 and abused her until she was about 17.
Before Justice Graham Panckhurst and a jury of seven men and five women yesterday, the man denied eight counts of rape, one of sodomy, three of indecent assault and three of inducing an indecent act.
Dressed in a smart grey pin-striped suit, white shirt and grey tie, the tall, well-built man answered "not guilty" in a firm, clear voice as the court registrar read the 15 charges.
Opening the case for the Crown, Philip Shamy told the court the abuse started when the accused was staying at a hotel in Christchurch when he was visiting from his country address.
Abuse graduated to regular rapes from when the complainant was about 13. Most of the abuse happened on rural properties, at a ski club and at a private address in Christchurch.
There would be evidence, Mr Shamy said, that the accused warned the girl not to tell anyone what was happening between them as it would destroy those close to them and she would be to blame.
Mr Shamy said that years after the abuse ended, the accused visited the woman at her Christchurch workplace in 2003 and suggested they have sex in the back of the shop.
"That appears to have been the catalyst to make her want to do something about it," he said.
Defence lawyer Jonathan Eaton said the accused "clearly and simply" denied any sexual offending involving the woman "all those years ago". "What she says [happened] could not have and did not occur."
However, Mr Eaton said his client admitted having consensual sexual intercourse "on one single occasion" when the woman was "of age" - about 16 or 17.
He said the complainant's credibility was at issue.
In evidence, the complainant said she had been virtually deaf since she contracted rubella as an infant. A cochlea implant in 1997 had given her 50 per cent hearing in her right ear.
She said she was about 7 or 8 when she first met the defendant. He was aged about 22 or 23 at the time.
"He was good to me ... interested in me," she said. "I was just a little girl."
She said she had wanted "many times" to tell her mother and sister about the man's offending.
But she thought no one would believe her because everyone thought she was "deaf and dumb".
"It was so hard. He had this power over me."
- NZPA
