Request to cancel couple’s bail

By Gideon Kindiwa
A POLICE prosecutor applied to revoke the bail of a couple who have been charged with sexually abusing a girl, 13.
Constable Shellian Pius asked the Waigani Committal Court to revoke their bail, saying they allegedly breached conditions by interfering with the victim.
Magistrate Cosmas Bidar adjourned the ruling and said the application would be dealt with next month.
The couple engaged two lawyers to represent each of them and one of the lawyers asked Bidar if the case could be split into two as the husband and wife were charged separately.
Pius objected, saying they committed the offence together and on the same victim. The victim was the husband’s biological daughter from his previous marriage.
The husband, 48, from West New Britain, was charged with persistent sexual abuse.
His new wife, from Hanuabada in the National Capital District, was charged with sexual abuse of the same victim.
It was alleged that the man sexually penetrated his daughter on several occasions between Sept 2015 and April 2017. He also invited his wife to take part in the offence.
They sexually abused the victim by having group sex. It was alleged that they also forced the victim to consume alcohol and have sex with them afterwards.
The man allegedly kept telling his daughter that she should have sex with him so that he would provide for her financial needs.
After facing continuous abuse from her father, the victim had enough and gathered courage to report the matter to her step-father.
The matter was then reported to police and the man was arrested and charged, his wife was also arrested and charged.
They are waiting for the court to rule on the police prosecutor’s application to revoke their bail.