Ex-jockey says comments not meant to be taken seriously

File photo / Bay of Plenty Times

A former Hastings jockey who made crude sexual comments on a home-made video about an under-age girl whom he is accused of raping and indecently assaulting over several years has told a jury trial in Napier that the comments were not intended to be taken seriously.

David John Frethey, 55, a sickness beneficiary, has denied nine charges of rape and sexual assaults on the girl, which were alleged to have begun when she was six years old, and eight charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice by attempting to discredit people he thought might give evidence against him.

Today, four of the charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice were withdrawn by the Crown in the Napier District Court.

Frethey gave evidence on his own behalf, denying having any sexual contact with the girl, who was the daughter of a woman he befriended after his marriage break-up around 2000. However, he admitted slapping the girl on the face on two or three occasions when she misbehaved.

The complainant was six or seven when he befriended her mother and often referred to him as "dad".

Frethey was questioned by Crown prosecutor Steve Manning about a home-made video showing him drinking beer while his 13-year-old son and two friends were smoking cannabis. During the video, Frethey referred to the girl, saying to his son and friends that they should "tell her to open her legs". He also talked about inviting the girl and a friend around for sex.

Frethey admitted the video footage caught him at an unguarded moment but denied it revealed his real attitude toward her, particularly after consuming alcohol and cannabis himself.

"I didn't mean anything by it."

He disagreed with Mr Manning's suggestion that alcohol and cannabis turned him into an angry, aggressive man with sexual urges, and that he had crafted her from an early age to be his sexual toy or plaything by giving her money and gifts and assaulting her if she resisted him.

One witness, a friend of the complainant, earlier told the court that Frethey had come into the lounge where the girls were sleeping on a mattress and had put his hand under the blankets to indecently touch the complainant. Frethey admitted going into the room to close the curtains but said he had only tickled the girl's feet while she slept.

In cross-examination, Frethey said he had always treated the girl with respect, despite the comments he made on the video clip.

He rejected a suggestion that he had given her alcohol and cannabis to break down any resistance to her advances.

Witnesses had been lying when they claimed they had seen him with his pants around his ankles being hit on the bottom with a stick by the girl, he said. He had lowered his shorts slightly to bare part of his lower back as a game, he said, pretending to be a horse while she hit him once.

The girl made her allegations of long-standing sexual abuse by Frethey to a welfare officer when she was 14. The Crown claims Frethey then set about systematically trying to discredit anyone he thought might give evidence against him, arranging for friends to write letters and to call Child Youth and Welfare with allegations about them, quoting from notes he had prepared.

The Crown and defence counsel Russell Fairbrother will make closing addresses tomorrow and Judge Geoff Rea will sum up on Monday before the jury retires.

- NZPA