‘Not guilty’ – jury clears Dean Adlem from Hungerford of child sex assault charges

A JURY has returned not guilty verdicts on a man accused of sexually assaulting a child.

Dean Adlem had vehemently denied the allegations which, he said, came out of the blue.

During the trial at Reading Crown Court it emerged that a detective had changed the wording of the girl’s evidence.

The child, who can not be identified for legal reasons, had claimed that she had pleaded with 44-year-old Mr Adlem, of Priory Road, Hungerford, to stop what he was doing.

Giving evidence in a consequent police interview, the child said Mr Adlem had come into the the room in which she was sleeping began molesting her.

But Janick Fielding, defending, pointed out that the detective had written that the girl had “said” the word ‘stop’.

In fact, he pointed out to jurors, the girl claimed she had shouted the word – a crucial difference, said Mr Fielding, since others had been sleeping close by.

Yet no one had reported hearing a thing.

Rather than spot this glaring discrepancy, a police colleague of the detective had allowed it to pass unchallenged, jurors were told.

The jury also heard a transcript of an interview detectives conducted with Mr Adlem, in which he insisted: “I just don’t know where she’s coming from.”

Pressed upon whether he had had any sexualised contact with her, he answered: “None; there was no touching.”

Asked specifically whether he had pinched and stroked her bottom and rubbed her intimately, Mr Adlem responded: “No – no, no, no.”

After the girl’s mother gave evidence, backing her daughter, Mr Fielding asked: “You told the jury she said he’d put hands on her bottom and hands around her [private parts] – that description isn’t what’s in your [police] statement, is it?

“Is it possible someone helped [your daughter] with her account and that her account has been discussed between you and her before she spoke to police?

“Because I’m going to suggest that, as a mother receiving that sort of complaint from her child – who she believed without question – that there’s an awful lot of detail that you told the jury she said that never made it into your statement.

“Is that because she didn’t say that, and you’re telling the jury this now, having discussed the evidence with her?”

The mother replied: “No.”

Jurors found Mr Adlem not guilty of both charges of indecent assault.