IT was not as unusual as it first seems, defence barrister Robert Hussey has told a jury, that a 14-year-old girl would give a man she didn't know a haircut in the public toilets at Nelson Bay Park.
The girl says the two men convinced her to go with them and alleges they then touched her sexually, and repeatedly, in the toilets on February 12, 2019.
She also alleges they assaulted her a second time in a car some time later when they drove her home.
Neil George Wood, 37, and Francis Mitchell Leigh, 32, have pleaded not guilty to eight counts each of sexually touching the girl in a joint criminal enterprise, and are facing trial in the Newcastle District Court.
The men, known as 'Woodsy' and 'Franky', agreed they were there in the park together on the night, that they met the girl, and that they went into the men's toilets with her for a haircut, but deny assaulting her.
Mr Hussey said at the beginning of the trial, the jury must have been thinking it was all "a little bit odd". In an idyllic setting - a park on the foreshore at Nelson Bay, a girl walks past two men she has never met, and ends up giving one of them a haircut in the toilets.
But Mr Leigh was working there as a fisherman, he said, the boat he works on had been moored there, and he was familiar with the foreshore, the toilet and the facilities.
Mr Woods was meeting him there and he was going to cut Mr Leigh's hair because he was going to a funeral the next day and wanted to look "respectable".
The girl voluntarily had a cigarette with them, and agreed to do the hair cut instead. So the location, the meeting and the request now all makes sense, Mr Hussey said.
The prosecution had not proved there was a joint criminal enterprise, he said. There was no evidence from the girl that the men encouraged each other, or said anything to one another when they were in the toilets with her.
And there were issues with the consistency and plausibility of her evidence, as well as a many reasons as to why she might lie, he said.
Her evidence was that she was "scared as f---' but she didn't leave and she did not say that the men forced her to stay, he told the jury. She also did not tell police when she first reported the incident that another man, of Asian appearance, walked in during the episode in the toilets and that was the perfect opportunity for her to walk away.
It was extraordinary, he said, that she would not leave for up to two hours, and implausible that she didn't leave with the Asian man.
"Even if there's language barriers ... you simply walk out with him and raise the alarm with him or with somebody else," he said.
As to why she might have lied, Mr Woods had talked to the girl about a good friend of hers and said she was "a sh-- of a child" and so the girl may have wanted to protect her, he said.
She may also have wanted a reason to explain to her friend, whose house she was staying at why she was late, he said. The trial, which began May 26, is continuing.
