THE mother of one of the children involved in the case of former Hibiscus Coast Municipality Protection Services senior traffic officer, Dave Middleton, was asked many times to ‘control her emotions and to focus on the questions’ while testifying in the Port Shepstone Regional Court this week.
At one point, Middleton’s advocate Jimmy Howse, told the prosecution’s first witness that if she kept evading the questions, he would submit at the end of her evidence that she was a poor and evasive witness who consistently embellished her replies and did not answer the questions put to her.
“I find your answers so incredible, I don’t know how to cross-examine you,” he said.
Middleton now faces 34 charges including rape, sexual assault, sexual grooming of a child, display and exposure of child pornography and intimidation.
The mother of the 10-year-old took to the witness box this week to testify as to what led to Middleton’s arrest last year.
She told the court that on August 8, 2013, she had accompanied her daughter to a karate class taken by Middleton.
Expecting a business call from a client, Middleton asked the woman to answer the phone if it rang, and take it to his partner, Cherie.
She then asked Middleton if she could play games on the phone, and he said that she could ‘go for it’.
“I never opened anything, I swiped the blank screen of the phone and there was the photo of a naked girl,” she said.
She said she saw a close-up of the private parts of the girl from the belly button down.
“I got such a shock I felt like vomiting as to what I saw on Dave’s phone,” she said.
She said she wanted to find out who the child was, and she went to the toilet where she discovered more photos, and recognised one of the young girls.
The mother said that one of other photos showed ‘Middleton’s penis and a little hand holding it’.
She said she knew it was Middleton’s penis as he had sent her three photos of himself days prior to the incident.
She then managed to send four of the photographs to her cellphone.
She said she had to find out if the ‘hand’ in the photo was in fact her daughter’s, which she identified by the birthmark and a mark on her nail.
The mother later confronted her daughter about her suspicions, and the child started crying and collapsed next to her bed. She took the child to a psychiatrist, and the child is still traumatised.
Under cross-examination, Middleton’s defence questioned how the mother could be disabled and planned to grade to a black belt in karate.
Advocate Howse found discrepancies between the mother’s statement and her evidence in court. “In your statements you say things completely different from your evidence,” he said.
He said the mother’s earlier claims that she didn’t know how to use the ‘new technology phones’ were false, as she had been able to access and send the photos from Middleton’s phone to hers.
He also put it to her that she didn’t access the photos in ‘good faith’, and that she had deliberately and unlawfully accessed Middleton’s photos without his permission.
However, the mother argued that she had asked Middleton for his permission.
‘It’s impossible that the picture of the naked person was facing you as you swiped… I dispute you came across the photos accidentally,” said Advocate Howse.
He pointed out yesterday (Wednesday), that the mother could not have seen the face of the person as the frontal photo only showed a young girl’s naked lower abdomen.
He said there was no evidence to indicate it was a child or the girl she knew, or that the photo was pornographic or abusive.
“I knew it was her, I had seen her naked before,” said the mother.
The mother then stated that the photographs were supposed to be sold.
She said that shortly before Middleton’s arrest, he had grabbed her and her daughter, and asked why she never came to him when she discovered the photos. He then apologised and admitted in front of her child that ‘he had made her hold his c**k’.
She said that Middleton had told her that he had only wanted to sell the photos, and other modelling photos, to give the proceeds to her, as she was a single and disabled mother.
Attorney Howse questioned why she had never mentioned this ‘vital information’ in her statement made two days later to the police.
After giving three different answers, the mother finally told the court, ‘she had forgotten to mention it’.
“You are an extremely dangerous witness and you make up stories to damage the accused,” said Advocate Howse.
The trial will continue today (Thursday). For more on this story, click here.
