A man acquitted of sexual offences after the victim admitted embellishing her story was yesterday given a conditional discharge for assault.

The defendant, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm in the lead-up to his trial, which ended abruptly after the complainant conceded that she had not told the truth.

Puisne Judge Alan Richards said the circumstances behind the case were “highly unusual and regrettable” and that the matter would likely had been dealt with in the Magistrates’ Court had it not been for the dismissed charges.

However, the judge said that an absolute discharge for the assault would not be appropriate.

“You are not entirely blameless in this affair,” Mr Justice Richards said.

“As even your counsel quite properly recognised during the trial and you have done by your plea, the violence which you do accept you directed towards the defendant was unjustified and unlawful.

“It is important that you understand that similar behaviour will not be tolerated in the future and will likely lead to much more serious consequences for you.”

The defendant was originally charged with five offences, including that he had sexually assaulted the complainant on two occasions in 2023 and pressured her to make a sex tape.

The defendant denied the allegations but pleaded guilty to a single count of assaulting the complainant causing her actual bodily harm in an incident on November 3, 2023.

Shortly after his trial began in the Supreme Court earlier this year, the complainant admitted on the stand that she had embellished the truth, which caused the judge to direct the jury to find the defendant not guilty of those charges.

At a sentencing hearing for the assault, Shaunte Simons-Fox, for the Crown, said the assault had left the victim with injuries but given all of the circumstances a conditional discharge would be appropriate.

While the complainant had alleged that the defendant had wielded a knife and threatened her life during the assault, Ms Simons-Fox said the court could not sentence the defendant on that basis.

“I don’t think given what happened at trial that you can be sure of her version of events and I myself cannot be sure, so I think what the court is left with is what he has admitted,” she said.

The defendant himself told the court that he accepted that what he had done was wrong but the false accusations had caused him “two years of mental anguish”.

“Not only am I mentally drained, I also had to come to the police station three times a week for two years for false allegations and now I’m left with $25,000 in lawyer bills,” he said.

Mr Justice Richards said that looking at the facts of the case, it would have been better if the complainant and the defendant had never met.

“You have had these proceedings, including the more serious charges, hanging over you since November 2023,” he said.

“Although that trial was over quickly, I’m sure that waiting for it and fearing a substantial period of imprisonment awaiting you if you were convicted was not easy for you.

“Although the nature of the other charges was such that you could not be publicly identified as the defendant, inevitably in a society of this size people came to know the charges you were facing, and that would have brought with it some stigma.”

In all the circumstances, Mr Justice Richards gave the defendant a two-year conditional discharge and warned him that if he appeared before the court for another offence that he could be resentenced and receive the conviction he avoided.

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