A Canberra man has been found guilty of sexually abusing his close friend's teenage daughter in the mid-1990s.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The ACT Supreme Court jury today found Michael Alan Gillard guilty of committing an act of indecency on the 13 year old and attempting to have sex with her.
Both charges allegedly relate to an incident that occurred at Gillard's Canberra home in the 1995-96 Christmas holidays.
The girl did not come forward about the abuse until 2008, and during the trial defence barrister Ken Archer argued the delay caused significant disadvantage to his client's case.
But the girl explained she had been afraid to speak up because Gillard was her father's best friend and she didn't want to cause a rift in her family.
The court heard the victim and her sisters travelled from Victoria in the 1990s to visit their brother, who was a patient at a Canberra hospice.
When they came to Canberra during their holidays they would stay with Gillard, a close family friend they were encouraged to call "Uncle Mick".
Mr Archer argued inconsistencies about the dates of visits from key prosecution witnesses - the victim, her older sister and their parents - cast doubt on the complainant's version of events.
But the victim told the court she remembered the incident clearly and referenced it in time because she began high school in 1996.
She told the jury she was worried about starting Year 7 because she had body image concerns, and as a result the period stuck in her mind.
Gillard took the witness box in his own defence and swore he never had a sexual encounter with the girl.
When prosecutor Kylie Weston-Scheuber suggested the girl "struck you as the kind of person who was unlikely to complain if she was assaulted by you in the way that she says she was" the defendant replied, "No".
In his closing address Mr Archer said to convict the jury would have to reject his client's version of events, and argued there was no evidence on which to disregard his account.
But it took the jury a little more than two hours to find Gillard guilty of the charges.
The defendant shook his head slightly as the verdict was read out.
Gillard will remain on bail briefly to put his affairs in order, but is facing a sentencing proceeding in relation to other matters on Friday.