A Ballarat jury has found a man guilty of indecently assaulting his underage niece in the 1980s.
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The man, who The Courier cannot name as it would identify the victim, was found guilty of two charges of indecent assault and one charge of gross indecency last week in the County Court.
The man was found not guilty of one charge of indecent assault. He had pleaded not guilty to the four historical charges, with the 12-person jury deliberating for a day and a half.
The victim, now in her 40s, told a closed court she was under the age of 10 when the offending first occurred. She alleged her uncle had encouraged her to masturbate him while he was driving her to Avoca for a camping trip, and at different points during the 1980s had thrust his penis between her thighs.
Crown prosecutor Andrew Grant told the jury during the trial the accused had previously pleaded guilty to sexual offences against his own daughter, and therefore had a history of being sexually attracted to young females in his family, and acting on his impulses.
"If you undertake a process and compare what the other evidence we have, you simply couldn't accept him as a person giving an account you can rely upon," he said.
The man's defence lawyer David Cronin said there were factors and inconsistencies that showed the victim's testimony is "unreliable, specifically in relation to drug use", as she had admitted to using methamphetamine when she made her complaint to police in 2014.
"After the Avoca camping trip, she moves in ... with the accused and (his wife)," he said. "She wanted to live there despite what happened as an eight-year-old?"
County Court Judge Christopher Ryan said in his final directions to the jury that if the man was found guilty of a charge of indecent assault, he would also be found guilty of gross indecency, as offending against a girl of "tender years" would go against the "ordinary standards of the community".
The man will be sentenced at the County Court in Melbourne in late July.
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