A Canberra landscaper has been cleared of raping a girl he used to babysit, after his barrister told a jury the child's memories of the alleged sexual abuse "keep shifting like sands on a windswept beach".
"Put that in your story," Kevin Patrick Malone, 47, told this reporter after he was acquitted in the ACT Supreme Court on Friday afternoon.
The Chisholm man had, moments earlier, nodded to the jurors who found him not guilty of engaging in sexual intercourse with a child, mouthing "thank you".
The jury only deliberated for a matter of minutes before returning the verdict.
Mr Malone was on trial for a week, fighting allegations he had raped the girl when she stayed over at his place on unknown dates between December 2011 and December 2014.
The court heard the child was aged between six and eight at the relevant times.
Part of the case against Mr Malone, the entirety of which he "vehemently" denied, was a claim he had put something in a glass of lemonade in order to drug the girl.
In her closing address on Friday morning, prosecutor Skye Jerome told jurors the alleged victim had been an "inherently credible" and reliable witness who had given "extremely persuasive and powerful evidence".
Ms Jerome said children were "not mini-adults" as she encouraged jurors to forgive the alleged victim for not remembering exact dates on which Mr Malone, "a father figure" to the girl, was said to have abused her.
The prosecutor quoted Polish poet Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, who said "youth is a gift of nature, but age is a work of art", arguing it made sense that the alleged victim had taken several years to report Mr Malone to police because it had taken her time to understand what had happened to her was wrong.
Ms Jerome also told jurors the alleged victim had felt "compelled" to speak to police in 2020 after hearing another girl was spending time at Mr Malone's home.
"[She was] not wanting the same fate for that other little girl," the prosecutor said.
While Ms Jerome said the alleged victim had "stood up to cross-examination", defence barrister Margaret Jones SC argued the girl had been "defensive in the witness box" when challenged about a "glaring difference" in her evidence.
Ms Jones told jurors there had been "a seismic shift" in the girl's claims when her interview with police in September 2020 was compared with pre-recorded evidence given in court earlier this year.
The defence barrister highlighted what she argued were differences in the girl's account about the positioning of her clothing at a particular time.
Ms Jones also reminded the jury the girl had described her memories of the alleged abuse as being "blocked" and "suppressed", questioning how jurors could be sure the alleged victim was recalling real events.
"Are they real? Are they imagined? How can you possibly assess that?" she asked, referring to the girl's memories.
Ms Jones ultimately suggested the girl's "inconsistent" evidence could be explained by the fact "it's hard to keep track of things that didn't happen".
She also raised the possibility the girl had a financial motive to lie about Mr Malone, having applied for victims of crime compensation.
