Battle of diaries as the court hears different accounts under the same date on karate instructor sexual assault case

The sexual assault trial involving a Ballarat karate instructor resumed as old diaries belonging to his ex-wife and the alleged child victim became highlighted evidence in the courtroom on Wednesday.

LH, 46, has pleaded not guilty to all eight charges of sexual assault offences with a child under 16. He allegedly had multiple penetrations with her when driving her home from training more than 20 times between 2002 and 2004. He was 26 and she was 11 when their sexual relationship allegedly started.

The complainant, whom LH recalled as ‘exceptionally talented at Karate’ provided Ballarat police with her diaries of 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006 as evidence. She had written symbols to indicate the sexual activity they had done on those particular days.

In one entry made in 2004, the then-junior karate student wrote that she had sex with LH after a training session on Good Friday.

The defense insisted that there were ‘never karate training on Good Friday’ as the court heard from LH’s ex-wife witness last Thursday, who explained that he had spent that entire day with her, starting with breakfast with the family, milking cows at the farm, attending church service, and then returning home.

She had also written of the day in her diary, which has since been submitted to the police as evidence.

The witness also testified that her ex-husband had always called her after his training sessions, telling her that he would arrive home in 20 minutes so that she could prepare dinner.

The drive time between the dojo centre and the complainant’s house at that time was five minutes, while the drive time between the dojo centre and the accused’s house was a minimum of 20 minutes. The complainant never saw LH made a phone call during the drives and the witness never heard the complainant in the background.

In his speech, the barrister questioned the mechanics of taking turns giving sexual penetrations while the accused was driving a manual car, in which he was required to change gears, all within the five-minute drive.

The accused had threatened to kill her

Addressing the evidence presented on the case, the prosecutor told the jury that this was ‘a young girl in love.’

“All she wanted as a connection with him,” said the prosecutor, referring to her diary entries.

The court also heard that the complainant had broken the sexual relationship with LH when she started seeing other boys because she ‘only wanted to be with one boy at a time.’

In last Thursday’s court hearing, the complainant’s ex-boyfriend appeared via teleconference recalling one occasion when she woke up in the middle of the night crying. When asked about the nightmares, she told him that ‘she wasn’t meant to be talking about it as he said he would kill her.’

She had believed that he could really kill her due to the accused’s proficiency at martial arts.

Submitted alongside her diary was a piece of paper in which she had written the names of boys she had kissed before her relationship with this ex-boyfriend.

When questioned by the police, she recalled having left number two blank as it was the accused and she ‘did not want anyone to see that.’

Summing up the four-hour hearing, the judge suggested that the juries think about which diary to believe and why.

The hearing continues. 

_____________________________________________________________________________

Note: I attended a court session at County Court Victoria to write the story. To read a media published story on this case, please click here (News.com).