Central Otago man allegedly sexually molested girl, threatened to put her in dog kennel

Warning: This story contains distressing content.

A young woman has described how a man sexually molested her when she was a child then threatened to put her outside in a dog kennel because she was homesick and crying.

He had earlier rubbed her with baby powder as she lay on a towel on his bed although she did not remember him rubbing it on her arms and legs.

But she recalled him rubbing it around her private parts which made her feel uncomfortable. She was crying.

Then the man got upset with her and threatened to put her in the dog kennel.

The woman is the last of four complainants to give evidence against a 61-year-old Central Otago man accused of indecently assaulting, raping and sexually violating the four young girls between 1999 and 2005.

The man denies 11 charges from the alleged offending - six of indecent assault, three of rape and two of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.

His trial before Judge Michael Crosbie and a jury goes into its fifth day of hearing in the Dunedin District Court today.

In her videotaped interview, the fourth complainant said the first time she remembered being at the defendant's house, he was playing pornographic films of people having sex. He was sitting on his bed laughing while the films were being played in front of her and her friends.

They put their hands over their ears and looked at each other, screaming and laughing - "we knew it was wrong and we shouldn't be watching", she said.

Another time, she remembered being with the three other girls in the man's bed and him making them swap places so each had a turn lying beside him.

She always felt somehow that the man was "always sexual", the woman said. "He always made me feel uncomfortable."

He often played porn movies.

She recalled one day she and her friend went on the internet to play a game in the computer room at the man's house. There was a little device that looked like an iPod and, when they looked, they could see the bathroom and the shower.

The man had hidden a little camera pointing towards the shower. She recalled thinking "God, I had a shower in there. He's seen me".

They told his wife, who said the camera was so the man could look at her.

"I knew it wasn't but I didn't say anything," the witness said.

She remembered staying a night at the house and waking up to feel something "down there". She felt someone's hand - "a wrinkly old hand with hairy knuckles down there" - and turned over as if she was asleep, moving towards the wall to get away from the man. He kept moving closer and closer, his hand still doing things to her.

When she rubbed her eyes and sat up, he pretended to be asleep and she got up and went out of the room for a long time.

On another occasion, she was meant to be staying at the house. But she went for a walk when the man came to collect her. Then her father dropped her at the house and the defendant was angry with her, yelling at her.

Later, she was scared of getting changed in the bedroom and hid in the closet.

Yesterday morning, the third complaint said the first thing she remembered was the man watching her and her friend swimming naked in the pool and watching them having a shower afterwards.

She also spoke of all four girls being in the man's bed and him getting them to keep swapping places. He pulled down her underwear and rubbed his penis against her back then put his penis between her legs.

When they later went to bed in the lounge, she woke up and saw the man crouching over one of the other girls. He had a torch and his other hand was inside the other girl's sleeping bag. Soon after he tried to do the same to her, but she pulled her sleeping bag tightly up under her chin and curled her body up tightly so he could not touch her.

She remembered him touching her indecently on another occasion when she was lying on top of him. And he was asking her how it felt.

Questioned by defence counsel Bill Dawkins about how she came to make a statement to the police, the witness said one of the other complainants had asked her to come forward.

She agreed to do so because she "didn't want any other children to experience what happened to us".

The woman also agreed she thought she should make a statement because "there was strength in numbers".