A girl who accused a man of multiple rapes and indecent assaults was not part of a "devious and dreadful scheme" for a compensation payout, the Crown says.
Evan Hedley Smith (62) is on trial before the Dunedin District Court having pleaded not guilty to six counts of indecent assault and two of rape.
The now-teenage complainant told the court this week that the molestation had occurred as often as four times a week over more than 18 months.
According to defence counsel Anne Stevens, that added up to nearly 400 potential instances of sexual abuse.
Each time, the girl had been the one to get into Smith's bed, the court heard.
"You can't make sense of it can you?" Mrs Stevens said yesterday.
"It's totally unbelievable."
The girl made the accusations after being grilled by her mother and gave a statement to police hours later.
In the following weeks, she went back to police claiming Smith raped her.
Mrs Stevens pointed to evidence from the girl's mother that the pair had discussed possible compensation payments as particularly noteworthy.
"This is a family that struggles with a lack of money," the lawyer said.
But Crown prosecutor Richard Smith said the theory as a motive to bring a false complaint did not stand up to scrutiny.
The fact the mother and daughter admitted they had talked about cash spoke in their favour rather than adding weight to the idea of deception.
"If this was a devious and dreadful scheme to extract money ... they would never admit such conversations occurred," he told the jury in his closing address yesterday.
"They were both doing their very best to be honest."
Mr Smith accepted the complainant's version of events had varied.
She gave different accounts to different people; but he suggested that was not indicative of a liar.
"Rather [she] was an 11- or 12-year-old girl at the time of this offending. She was caught up in something she barely understood."
He called it "a whirlwind of unfamiliar territory, even for an adult".
"I urge you to remember she's a child. Children are not miniature adults," Mr Smith told the jury.
Mrs Stevens was scathing of her demeanour in court.
"I lost count of the number of times she yawned. She stretched as though these matters barely kept her awake, barely warranted her attention."
Mrs Stevens raised a lack of detail in the allegations.
She said the complainant came across as "not a girl who's been sexually abused in the most horrible way - rape - for one and a-half years by a grown man."
When police searched Smith's bedroom on April 21 last year, they found six used condoms in his bin.
The defendant said he had used them to relieve himself and because he was "waking up wet".
Forensic analysis found two of the condoms featured DNA from both Smith and the girl.
Mrs Stevens said the complainant's DNA could have been transferred from other items among the rubbish or from her blowing up the prophylactics.
Mr Smith asked jurors to use common sense.
"What are the chances? Ask yourself: are you prepared to accept that's just a coincidence?"
Judge Michael Crosbie will sum up this morning before the jury of seven women and five men retires to consider its verdicts.
