A man convicted of abusing young girls during church meetings at his family's "Hillview" farm has had a small win on appeal which could see his prison sentence reduced.
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Cameron Flynn Tully, 41, was accused of terrible crimes by eight women, who attended his parents' farm as children in the 1990s and early 2000s.
He faced a trial on 23 charges in mid-2014, and was found guilty of the majority of the allegations.
The children, who were then aged between seven and 13, told the court they were molested at various locations on the farm, including a shearing shed, a bathroom, and his bedroom.
Justice John Burns sentenced him to 14 years and six months behind bars, with a non-parole period of nine years.
Tully later appealed his convictions in the ACT Court of Appeal, which handed down its decision on Wednesday.
The court set aside his convictions for four offences, committed against the same complainant, finding they were unsafe and unsatisfactory because there was not enough evidence to prove her age at the time of those offences.
Those charges alleged the girl was under the age of 10 at the time, meaning prosecutors had to prove her age beyond reasonable doubt.
The evidence at trial, however, raised the possibility that she was older than 10.
The Court of Appeal also found the jury may have misunderstood the judge's directions telling them how they should deal with the complainant's age.
That forced the higher court to enter not guilty verdicts on the four counts.
More recent laws, introduced in 1995, allow juries the alternative of returning verdicts of guilty to an "under 16" offence when they were sure the crime occurred, but not that the child was under the age of 10.
The court is yet to work out exactly how much time will be taken off his sentence as a result of the appeal.
Chief Justice Helen Murrell said on Wednesday that rough calculations suggested it would be reduced by about two years.
Tully also appealed on a range of other grounds, but all were dismissed by the ACT Court of Appeal.
He had argued the jury was "overwhelmed" in the case by two factors: the hearing of all charges in a single trial, and the way each charge was used to prove that Tully had a tendency to be sexually attracted to young girls.
Tully said evidence should have been called about what he termed "improper conduct" by ACT police, and that the court erred when it decided not to take the jury on a site visit to the farm.
He argued that visit would have allowed the jury to realise the weakness of one allegation, in which a girl said she was molested in a shearing shed during a Queen's Birthday long weekend bonfire.
Tully argued the jury would have realised that the shed, if illuminated, would have used a generator that would have created significant noise, easily heard by those at the bonfire site.
But the trial judge found a visit may mislead the jury, because the farm may have changed significantly in the time since.
The Court of Appeal agreed, finding it would have been near impossible to replicate the circumstances of the night of the offence.
He criticised the reliability of the complainants, pointing to discrepancies in evidence that the jury were never made aware of.
But the court found the jury was able to assess the complainants' reliability, and that he had statements showing some discrepancies in their evidence, but did not use them.
The matter will come back to court in March to work out how the results of the appeal change Tully's sentence.
