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An alleged incident involving a second rape accusation against the same woman has been dismissed due to lack of evidence.
Michael Francis Martin, aged 70, faced initial charges related to seven offenses stemming from two alleged sexual assaults in the early 1980s.
DNA evidence collected from the scene was deemed strong enough for a jury to consider his guilt or innocence regarding the crimes purportedly occurring on July 6, 1983, at a residence in Lauder’s Newport, located in Melbourne’s western suburbs.
Martin, who firmly denies all allegations, stood before the court and entered a plea of “not guilty” to each of the three charges brought against him.
He had also been accused of four charges over a 1981 alleged attack on Lauder, then-aged 82, with the prosecution relying on coincidences and similarities between the two events as they lacked DNA evidence.
Martin had been charged with offences including intent to commit assault with an offensive weapon and aggravated sexual assault.
Prosecutors alleged 13 factors pointed to Martin being the offender in both rapes, including that each incident occurred at the same place, against the same person and around a similar time.
The Crown argued the offending circumstances were similar as they said Lauder was told to lie on the floor on each occasion, remove her clothing and had been asked not to call police.
Martin’s defence team submitted six features were dissimilar between the two events, including the use of a weapon, demands for Lauder to be quiet and the taking of money.
Magistrate Rohan Lawrence said the offending was “most serious and certainly traumatic” but found the prosecution’s features were common across “many instances of sexual offending by an intruder”.
“I do not believe there is a reasonable possibility that the Crown would be permitted to rely on coincidence reasoning to argue that the accused was responsible for the first offending,” he said.
“Accordingly, I will discharge Mr Martin on charges one to four.”
He said all of the offending allegedly committed against Lauder was “reprehensible”.
However, it was not committed in a way that would provide the prosecution with a “strong argument” that the two alleged attacks were perpetrated by the same person, Lawrence said.
Additionally, Lauder died in 1993 and cannot be called as a witness to give evidence about the incidents.
Martin was placed on trial bail and will face the County Court for a directions hearing on March 18.
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