AUSTRALIA
The Age
August 27, 2013
Adam Cooper
Reporter for The Age
A jury has been told the “lapse of time” from offences allegedly committed by a former Catholic priest will make it hard for him to be found guilty of sexually abusing eight teenage boys.
Defence counsel Shaun Ginsbourg, in his closing address to the County Court in the trial of former Salesian College priest David Edwin Rapson, told the jury the allegations dated back too far for a jury to find them true.
Mr Rapson, 60, has pleaded not guilty to eight charges of indecent assault and five counts of rape related to alleged incidents between the mid 1970s and 1990 while he was a priest at the boarding school in Rupertswood.
One of the complainants alleges he was raped on four separate occasions in 1990.
The jury will begin deliberations on Wednesday.
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