CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses allegations of indecent behaviour and assault.
A 55-year-old man who was in South Australia for a holiday has been arrested and refused bail over charges of indecent behaviour, assault and gross indecency.
Police alleged in a Berri Magistrates Court on Thursday that the man approached a 15-year-old girl while she was walking home from school in Berri on Wednesday, at about 10.40am.
“The allegation is that the accused grabbed his crotch area, he has then tried to grab the victim while she was running away,” the prosecutor said, per ABC News.
The witness then told the court that the man got into a vehicle and drove away. The witness recorded his registration number.
The man is also accused of indecently exposing himself to three girls aged 12 and 13 years old in a separate occasion on the same day, at about 3.35pm in Loxton.
The prosecutor said the 13-year-old girl saw a man in the passenger seat of a vehicle, masturbating with his penis exposed.
“She says the male then got out of the vehicle and started shaking his penis and winking at them,” the prosecutor said.
Police searched the man’s vehicle and found various “normal” items like clothes, as well as cable ties.
The prosecutor suggested that potentially more serious offending was allegedly intended, noting the man also allegedly chased after one of the girls, who ran away from him and hid in a nearby school.
However, the man’s lawyer has denied this and said it was “quite a stretch” to link having cable ties to sinister intentions.
“One would expect that travelling around Australia, including around rural regions and the Northern Territory, that you would have items such like cable ties, that is extremely common and quite normal,” the lawyer said.
The man was refused bail by the judge, Magistrate Melanie Burton, and the case will appear in court again in Adelaide Magistrates Court in March next year.
Image: iStock/moisseyev
Help is available.
- If you require immediate assistance, please call 000.
- If you’d like to speak to someone about sexual violence, please call the 1800 Respect hotline on 1800 737 732 or chat online.
- Under 25? You can reach Kids Helpline at 1800 55 1800 or chat online.
