A MAN will stand trial accused of the sexual and indecent assaults of three women in the Tamworth CBD last year.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Matthew Leslie Hyde is being held at the South Coast Correctional Centre and appeared via videolink in Tamworth Local Court, where his solicitor waived the 29-year-old’s right to a committal hearing, electing instead to head straight to trial.
The three charges relate to the alleged sexual and indecent assaults of three women in and around the Tamworth CBD on the night of September 19 last year, and into the early hours of the next morning.
Hyde is accused of grabbing a 22-year-old woman, forcing her to the ground and sexually assaulting her in Bicentennial Park during the early hours of September 20.
Police allege Hyde also indecently assaulted an 18-year-old girl who was walking along Kable Ave, as well as another 31-year-old woman as she walked along Bridge St.
The court was told there had been hold-ups with the case after a DNA result had only been “received on the 7th of March”, and there was still some confusion between the state and commonwealth DPP on four other charges against Hyde.
Hyde is also accused of using a carriage service to solicit child pornography; possessing material intended to breach section 474.19; using a carriage service to engage in sexual activity with a child; and using a carriage service to procure a child under 16 for sexual activity.
The offences were triggered in November after police seized Hyde’s phone and allegedly discovered messages from him, procuring a girl under the age of 16 for sexual activity.
A solicitor for the NSW DPP said the state would not be prosecuting the matter, but she said the commonwealth had not confirmed its position.
“We referred the matters to the commonwealth,” she told the court.
“We’ve made it clear the charges are unrelated. They are quite serious matters.”
Magistrate Roger Prowse lambasted the lengthy delays in the matter and said there was someone “that languishes in jail while the Crown works out what they’re doing”.
Hyde’s solicitor consented to a short adjournment and said her client “wants to know what is happening with the charges”.
A commonwealth prosecutor, who happened to be in court for an unrelated matter, requested an adjournment to examine the matter.
This was granted, but not before Mr Prowse imposed $1500 in costs against the prosecution for “costs thrown away” by another adjournment.
He said the costly adjournment would ensure that the “complainant might actually have some certainly that the matter might move on” when it returned to court next month.
Hyde made no application for bail and it was formally refused.
