Football coach a molester

A football coach has been found guilty of grooming young girls and molesting them, including his own niece and granddaughter.

The man, from Manawatu¯ , has name suppression to protect the identity of his victims.

He was convicted yesterday after a trial before a judge, with no jury, on seven charges of indecent assault.

Judge Stephanie Edwards said the offending was uncovered in February 2017 when the man’s granddaughter told her parents she did not like things he had said and done when she visited him when she was in her early and mid-teens.

In the Palmerston North District Court, she said she and her younger sister were watching a movie with him on his bed when he indecently assaulted her.

A couple of months later, he talked to her about the incident and invited her to do the same act with him again.

When her parents picked her up that afternoon, she told them what happened, triggering a police investigation.

Police linked the accusations to an earlier complaint from the man’s niece that was also under investigation and spoke with a girl he had coached in a football team.

The football player was aged between 12 and 14 when he formed an inappropriate relationship with her.

Over about 12 months the girl said he gained her friendship and her family’s trust. He became familiar in his physical contact with her and indecently assaulted her on four occasions, including the same act he did to his granddaughter, also while they watched a movie.

The girl said she made excuses to get away from him and eventually became so upset she quit the team and told her mum she did not want to see him.

The court heard the man assaulted his niece when he and his wife were babysitting her when she was 5 or 6. On one occasion she woke to find him touching her inappropriately and on another occasion he carried out the same act the other girls reported, in a similar setting.

The man said he understood if the accusations were true they would be indecent acts, but the descriptions of the indecent acts themselves were fabricated.

Judge Edwards said there was no indication the three girls embellished their evidence. She found them credible witnesses and similarities in their stories were striking and strengthened the case against the coach.

The man was not convicted of an eighth charge that alleged he exposed himself to his niece because she had consistently said she faced away from him when he undressed.

The man had previous convictions for indecently exposing himself and it was likely he would be sent to jail, Edwards said.

He will be sentenced in October.