AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury
By REBECCA SENESCALL
June 23, 2005
A TELEVISION network has told a Sydney court it most likely shredded records of a deal it made with a girl who claimed Nowra cult leader William Kamm assaulted her.
Police had been asking the network to hand over the records for the past two years.
A Sydney District Court jury heard yesterday that a lawyer for the Seven Network was unable to find the contract the girl signed in 2002, when she was paid $2500 to give an interview for the Today Tonight program detailing her allegations of sexual interference by Kamm when she was aged 15.
The girl spoke to the television network before taking her complaints to the police.
At the start of his trial last week, Kamm pleaded not guilty to four counts of aggravated indecent assault and one of aggravated sexual intercourse with the girl in 1993, in the months after she had been selected as one of his 12 "mystical wives".
Yesterday, the police officer leading the investigation, child protection and sex crimes squad officer Detective Senior Constable Lorenda Barber, told the jury she had tried to question the television presenter who struck the interview deal with the girl, but he had decided on legal advice not to make a police statement.
Posted by kshaw at June 22, 2005 07:42 PM