Man on trial over sex crimes allegedly committed as a child

Wednesday 04 March 2020

A 53-year-old man is on trial in Jersey's Royal Court, accused of starting a cycle of repeated sexual abuse on a young girl when he himself was just a child.

The case against Paul Adrian Le Marquand, who denies a raft of "serious" charges including attempted rape and sodomy, opened yesterday before a jury of ten women and two men.

The alleged string of sex attacks on the girl, which also include inappropriate touching and oral sex were said to have started when Mr Le Marquand was still in primary school, but continued into his teen years.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Crown Advocate Matthew Jowitt said the alleged victim had told one of her friends about the abuse “a handful of years” after it allegedly occurred, noting: “These are not matters [she] has cooked up in recent times.”

Pictured: Crown Advocate Matthew Jowitt is leading the prosecution.

The jury heard that, after the woman made a complaint to the police in March 2017, Mr Le Marquand was interviewed and denied the allegations.

He described them as a “lie” and "a fragment of her imagination”. He also suggested someone else may have abused her and that she had decided to accuse him rather than the real culprit. 

The alleged victim broke down in tears as she took to the stand. Describing herself as "probably too young", she told the jury that Mr Le Marquand had tried to have sex with her on one occasion but was unable to.

On a separate occasion, she claimed Mr Le Marquand had tried to rape her. 

She also said he pushed her against a wall and indecently assaulted her, and rubbed his crotch in between her legs on another occasion.

Pictured: The alleged victim was the first witness to be called.

Mr Le Marquand’s defence lawyer, Advocate Mark Boothman, challenged the woman’s version of events.

He suggested Mr Le Marquand could have been younger than the woman said at the time the abuse allegedly started, drawing on her inability to be clear about dates.

At several points during the cross-examination, the defence lawyer suggested the events the woman described had not taken place, but she maintained that they did. 

“The only potential three eyewitnesses who could have corroborated your story have been unable to give an account because you knew they wouldn’t have supported your accusations,” the defence lawyer said, adding shortly after: “They never witnessed any abuse, because it simply didn’t happen.”

“The abuse happened,” the woman replied. 

Advocate Boothman also argued the woman had “manipulated stories to make up allegations of indecent assault”, which she also denied.

She went on to refute that she had made up the allegations for financial gain.

The defence lawyer showed the jury text messages in which the woman had discussed a potential civil claim, but the woman explained she had only considered it in the event that her case would not come before court. 

“I wanted justice for what happened to me,” the woman said.

Pictured: The woman died making the allegations up for financial gain.

Questioned over why she didn't tell anyone about the assault at the time, the woman said she didn’t want her parents to find out. “I had to bear this, I couldn’t do this to them,” she said, before breaking down in tears.

She later shared her account with a friend, who later appeared before the jury, telling them that the alleged victim had “found it difficult to speak and to express what she was trying to say”.

The Crown Advocate then read the transcript of Mr Le Marquand’s first interview with police, in which he described learning of the allegations as “a little bit of a shock”.  

“It wasn’t me, it absolutely wasn’t me,” he repeated, adding he had no idea why the woman would say he had assaulted her when they were both children. 

The trial, which is being heard under the direction of the Bailiff Tim Le Cocq, continues this morning.