Parents were prepared to change their evidence and lie in order to get an innocent swimming coach convicted of molesting students during classes, his barrister has told a Sydney jury.
He said one mother had changed the word "bottom" to "vagina", while another gave a new version of her daughter saying the teacher put his fingers in her vagina after the girl said he put his arm between her legs.
"She was clearly motivated by bias against the accused," defence barrister Leslie Nicholls said in his closing address on Friday in the NSW District Court.
"She told us she wants him to be convicted."
Kyle James Henk Daniels, 22, has pleaded not guilty to 26 charges, including multiple counts of having sexual intercourse with a child under 10 and indecently assaulting a person under 16.
He is accused of touching nine of his students aged between five and 10 on or near their genitals while instructing them between February 2018 and February 2019 at the pool on Sydney's north shore.
Mr Nicholls said the issue for the jury was whether Daniels deliberately and unlawfully touched the private area of any of the complainants.
"The Crown needs to exclude inadvertent or accidental touching," he said.
A "not insignificant" part of the case was that most of the complainants, the parents and the teaching supervisors had the impression at first that any touching was accidental.
"We know from the evidence of the difficulties and challenges of children moving in the water," he said.
Of significance was the fact that all the allegations occurred after Daniels got permission to wear glasses in the pool rather than contact lenses, Mr Nicholls said.
He referred to evidence about glasses fogging up, getting splashed on and impairing the wearer's vision.
Even if the jury accepted Daniels had wanted to sexually touch girls, which the defence denied, it was at a time when he was surrounded by supervisors, lifeguards, parents or carers, other instructors and CCTV.
"I suggest such a risk would preclude any person intending or deliberately doing so," Mr Nicholls said.
Daniels was supposed to be getting sexual pleasure out of touching girls for one or two seconds, but there was "absolutely no indication whatsoever" he had been aroused or stimulated.
He noted his client's good character, particularly citing the thank-you note he sent to a police officer who had "treated him like a human being " after his arrest in contrast with others who had vilified him by calling him a "disgusting pedo".
Mr Nicholls went on to go through the interviews with the complainants and the evidence of their parents, who he said had understandably reacted in a certain way after hearing of claims about Daniels.
One mother testified that she "would never forget" her daughter saying her teacher had moved his fingers inside her vagina, but Mr Nicholls said the first time the mother gave this version was eight months after the alleged event.
His address continues.
