Woman takes stand to testify against father in historical sex abuse trial

The jury in the trial of a Hawke's Bay man accused of historical sexual abuse has heard from his daughter. Photo/File

A woman has told a jury she kept quiet about being molested by her father until her brother took his own life.

A Hawke's Bay man, who cannot be named, is standing trial in the Napier District Court this week after pleading not guilty to 11 charges that allege he molested his daughter and niece decades ago.

Yesterday the man's daughter took the stand and told the jury of seven males and five females her father molested her as a child so regularly "it was normal".

The court heard the woman had vague memories of being touched as a baby in nappies and would be ordered to her father's room to lie on his bed so he could touch her in later years.

"I remember he would spit on his hands and use that spit to rub on my private parts.

"When you're a little baby you don't understand what these things are...You just do what your mum and dad tell you to do and you don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing."

The defendant pleaded not guilty to rape, attempted rape, four charges of indecency with a girl aged between 12 and 16 and five charges of indecency with a girl under 12 years old.

The charges, most of which are representative, are historical, the oldest dating back 46 years.

Yesterday the man's daughter told the court she didn't tell anyone about the alleged offending until she was about 17 years old at a family get-together.

"I told them everything that had been going on. I didn't go into the little details."

The jury heard her father called her shortly after she spoke out to her family and gave what she thought was a sincere apology.

"He said 'sorry'. I really believe he was sincerely sorry at that time," the woman said.

In cross-examination the man's defence lawyer Bill Calver asked the woman if her brother's death was the "catalyst" for taking her father to court.

"That was a breaking point, a changing point," she said.

"Where it was no longer [able] to be swept under the carpet, the things we endured, now that a life has gone."

Calver put to her that her allegations were false and had been made to "get back" at her father for things that had happened in both her and her brother's lives.

"I don't have to get back at him I just need to speak up and tell the truth," the woman said.

On Monday the court heard from the man's niece, who testified to being molested by the defendant in the bed she slept in when visiting his home in the school holidays.

She told the court she remembered waking to the man pulling the covers off her and putting his hand down her pants, often on occasions when other adults had left the property to play housie.

"I haven't really spoken a lot about it ... I haven't told her [the defendant's daughter] anything at all about what he'd done to me. I haven't told anybody. My children don't even know and some of them are adults."

The trial continues.

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