THE trial of a sports coach who is charged with 90 sexual offences against young girls is to go ahead, the High Court ruled yesterday.
Mr Justice Kelly, in his judgment, said that the offences were alleged to have taken place between 1976 and 1992, the bulk of them up to 1984. The man was attached to a school. The offences were alleged to have been against nine girls aged between 11 and 15 years.
The man was charged with the offences on July 10th, 1995. In the High Court he sought an order of prohibition to stop the DPP proceeding with the trial.
He contended he would not get a fair trial due to the period of time that had elapsed between the dates of the alleged offences and his being charged. He contended that the delay in bringing him to trial would lead to injustice.
Mr Justice Kelly said that the allegations were of systematic sexual abuse of young girls between those years. The man said that he did not commit any of the offences, and if he did come to trial he would be pleading not guilty.
The man stated that the alleged offences took place so long ago that he could not hope to find witnesses and account for every hour of each and every day during the period of the alleged offences.
He would be unable to identify such witnesses. He would not be able to account for his whereabouts or activities at those times.
One of the complaints was made to a teacher in 1980. The man was never confronted with the complaint and at that time he would at least have been in a position to defend himself.
The man also claimed that he would have no diary or documents to account for those times.
The judge said that the evidence did not satisfy him that any actual or particular prejudice had been established by the man which would render the trial unfair.
There were significant periods of time between the alleged offences and the charge. However, he was of the view that the delay had been explained by the uncontroverted evidence of a psychologist who examined the girls and set out reasons as to why an alleged victim might not want to make a complaint.
These included that sexual abuse sometimes gave rise to a feeling of guilt, that the abuser might be a person in authority and held in high esteem, that they would not be believed, or might want to drive it out of their minds.
He said he must also bear in mind the relationship between the man and the complainants. They were all, at the time of the alleged offences, girls of tender years, whereas he was an adult of about 30 years of age.
The judge said that on the evidence the relationship between the man and the complainants was not merely one of adult and children. It was a great deal more by virtue of the position he held.
The man pointed out the difficulty of establishing an alibi. The judge said that not much weight could be attached to this in the overall context.
There was no doubt but that a trial at such a remove in time from the offences alleged was undesirable. But in all the circumstances, he did not consider that a risk of an unfair trial had been established as a reality by the man.
The trial judge would be in a position to control the trial and give directions to jurors.