West Coast men face raft of child sex abuse charges

Four West Coast men have appeared in court charged with a raft of sex offending charges against children.

But their details - and details of the case - cannot be published due to heavy suppression orders.

The men appeared in the Greymouth District Court yesterday.

One man is facing 38 charges relating to sexual offending.

A second is facing 14 charges.

A third is facing seven charges and is accused of five counts of sexual offending including one representative charge.

A representative charge means police believe a person has committed multiple offences of the same type in similar circumstances.

The men will be back in court in August.

Judge David Ruth suppressed all details that would identify the men, as well as much of what was said in yesterday's court hearing.