A former South Australian police officer has been found guilty of sexually abusing his teenage stepdaughter.
His conviction came despite the man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victim, claiming the 15-year-old had fabricated the allegations because she fantasised about having sex with him.
The former police officer pleaded not guilty to two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse and one count of indecent assault, police said. Advertiser reported.
The girl had told her boyfriend and a school counselor that she had been sexually abused by an older man in September or October 2021.
The court heard during the trial earlier this month that the abuse occurred after the officer had been drinking with the boy at his family home.
The officer massaged the victim’s feet, prosecutor Ben Sturm told the jury. “He then put his hands on her leg and began to gradually move up,” he said.
Sturm said the officer sat the teenager on his lap and kissed her.
He then ‘got on top of her and kissed her neck, then started feeling her all over her body and then put his hands down her trousers’, the court was told.
A former South Australian police officer who threatened to jump off a cliff has been found guilty of sexually abusing his teenage stepdaughter. File image
The court heard that the next morning the girl had a bite mark on her neck, and her stepfather told her to “pretend it was an irritation”.
After discovering the teenager had told her counsellor about her abuse, the police officer called her partner, told him what he had done to their daughter and told him he was going to kill himself, the jury heard.
Police found the man shortly after on the edge of a cliff.
He admitted to engaging in sexual conduct with the victim, Sturm said.
The officer admitted over the phone to the victim’s mother that he had “messed up,” kissed the teenager and “other things,” but he would not say what those other things were, jurors were told.
He admitted to the officer who found him on the cliff top that “it’s my stepdaughter, I screwed up,” the court heard.
Mr Sturm said those admissions were “very powerful… they are really conclusive as to his culpability for those acts”.
The prosecutor said the police officer had told the victim that “I thought it was a dream I had, as if I hadn’t thought it had actually happened” and that it had ruined his childhood.
The police officer also told the girl that if she told anyone he would kill himself, the court heard.
But her attorney, Paul Rice KC, told jurors the victim may have had motive to lie about the allegations.
“She hated him and/or fantasized about being with him in some sexual way and he didn’t reciprocate and she decided it was time for him to leave,” Rice said, adding that it was “a false accusation.”
The police officer told the girl that if she told anyone about the abuse, he would kill himself. Police headquarters on Angas Street in Adelaide is pictured.
He said the officer’s suicide attempt “was not an admission of guilt, but of defeat and despair.”
‘We suggest that you have a reasonable doubt as to the defendant’s guilt and find him not guilty on all counts.’
The jury found the police officer guilty on the two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse and not guilty on the charge of indecent assault.
The man will return to court in November before being sentenced later this year.
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