A Cook man charged with sexually abusing four children has been allowed to return to his family property to carry out ''critical'' fire management work.
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And the ACT Magistrates Court heard allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour had followed Cameron Flynn Tully, 37, for years but charges had not been laid until October, when four alleged victims came forward.
His wife told the court the accusations were malicious, vile and disgusting.
Yesterday Tully pleaded not guilty to a fresh charge of committing an act of indecency on a child in the late 1990s, when the alleged victim was aged 10 or 11.
Tully already faces another 11 charges of sexually abusing young girls between 1988 and 2000 and has pleaded not guilty to all of them.
He allegedly molested the girls, aged between three and 13, when they visited the large family farm at Cook, which is home to several generations of the Tully family.
The property, named Hillview, played host to various groups and social events at the time and Tully often supervised the younger children and organised games for them.
Tully has been living with a relative since his arrest in October but applied to change his bail conditions to allow him to return to the family property to do slashing and fire prevention ahead of the summer.
In a rare move, Tully gave evidence himself at the bail variation hearing, saying Hillview was a very large property on the edge of Canberra's northern suburbs and his family's fire management preparations were ''critical for the protection of Belconnen'' in the event of a bushfire.
He said he needed to return to the family home to maintain vehicles, cut grass and otherwise ensure the farm was in ''absolute operational condition'' ahead of bushfire season.
Tully's wife described the charges against him as ''malicious, vile, disgusting lies''.
Kathleen Tully said her husband had told her about the rumours and allegations of sexual abuse when they first started dating years ago, but she did not believe they were true.
She told the court she had never feared for her children's safety around their father and said she would enforce any bail conditions imposed by Magistrate Beth Campbell.
Tully's lawyer said two of the alleged victims were ''serial complainers'' who had made allegations of abuse against half a dozen other people.
He told the court the charges were ''very much contrived complaints'' and time would tell that his client was innocent.
But the Crown said the alleged victims had come forward independently and had lost contact with each other in the intervening years since the alleged instances of abuse.
Constable Shelley Hoey told the court police feared for the safety of 11 children living on the extended family property and believed Tully would not comply with a bail condition that banned him from being alone with children.
She said the group of children were home-schooled and did not have regular contact with authority figures such as teachers who could report any issues or abuse they might have suffered.
But Tully told the court his five young children had a range of outside activities such as tennis, karate and swimming.
Magistrate Beth Campbell agreed to let the man return to the property between the hours of 7am and 10am and 4pm and 8pm.
But the magistrate also banned him from approaching within 20m of any of the six homes on the farm aside from his own.
The matter is due back in court in February.