Man guilty of molesting young sisters

A Wellington High Court jury took less than an hour today to find a 72-year-old man guilty of sexually molesting two young sisters.

The victims were a mentally disabled girl aged in her early teens and her sister, who was between nine and ten at the time.

The offender, a friend of the girls' family, had denied two representative charges of doing an indecent act on each girl, and one of sexual violation by digital penetration relating to the elder girl.

The offending took place in Wellington between 2005 and 2008, and involved the man picking the girls up from school and driving to a quiet place to molest them.

The elder girl gave evidence that on one occasion the man put his hand down her pants and rubbed her so hard it left her with lasting pain.

Crown prosecutor Mark O'Donoghue said the girls were uncomfortable about the man's behaviour but were given treats and money and felt "strangely compelled to do what he wanted".

He said the man was "cunning", which extended on occasions to him calling the girls' school posing as their father or uncle and successfully requesting their absence.

Mr O'Donoghue said the younger girl, along with a third girl, became wary of the man's behaviour and went out of their way to avoid him, at the same time making efforts to protect the handicapped girl from him.

In 2005, when the father learned the man had been picking them up from school without permission, he told him not to see the girls any more.

Defence lawyer Noel Sainsbury said the man had genuine affection for the girls and had found that directive difficult to accept.

He had admitted to "stupid" actions such as getting the girls out of school under false pretence, but denied all the sexual allegations against him.

"Telling a lie doesn't make you guilty of an offence," Mr Sainsbury said as he summed up his case this morning.

The man believed he had offered the girls more as a father figure than their actual father ever did.

Justice Warwick Gendall remanded the man in custody to be sentenced on November 13.

- NZPA