DIFFERENCES in what an alleged sexual assault victim told police when they first met her and what police then put in a crime report have been highlighted on the second day of horse trainer Michael James Mair’s trial.
Mair, 67, has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting a teenage woman at a Little Mountain home in June 2013.
An audio recording taken by a Caloundra police officer when they came across the alleged victim about 5am on the day of the alleged incident was played to the court.
The court heard the other officer in attendance and the alleged victim did not know he was recording.
She could be heard sobbing and then detailing to two male officers an assault she said had occurred shortly before police were called to assist
The woman was walking along a street when police found her.
She could be heard in the recording saying Mair had touched her inside her pants.
The police asked her if she told him to stop.
“I was really scared,” she replied.
The court heard the audio recording details of the alleged incident differed from a version given by the officer who didn’t do the recording when he compiled a crime report less than an hour later.
Defence barrister Stephen Courtney asked the reporting officer if he had taken another version of the incident from the alleged victim once they got back to Caloundra station.
He said he couldn’t remember if he had taken another version from her at the station before compiling the police report.
Aspects of the police report and that officer’s subsequent statement differed from the version the alleged victim gave in pre-recorded evidence in September last year.
Differences included timing of when the alleged incident occurred, the order in which Mair allegedly touched different parts of her body and a claim he put two hands in her pants instead of one.
When asked about the differences, the officer said he couldn’t remember having a second conversation with the alleged victim but acknowledged he could have.
A third police officer, who came on shift once the alleged victim was back at the station, said he took details about the incident similar to those in his colleague’s statement.
He conceded he had read his colleague’s statement and copied and pasted it into his statement after being satisfied it matched what he was told by the alleged victim.
A Queensland Health forensic scientist also began giving evidence about DNA analysis of clothes seized from the alleged victim.
He said he believed analysis of DNA samples taken from the waistband of the alleged victim’s underpants showed a link to a minimum of three people, one of those being the alleged victim.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/sunshine-coast/stories-dont-match-up-in-sex-assault-trial/news-story/3e5f5a7dc1d092959cbed91351ef011e