A former rugby player will spend at least 11 months behind bars after failing to convince a court that his 14-year-old victim was “unreliable” in a last-ditch effort to avoid jail.
Allambie Heights man Connor Lind, 25, was found guilty by a NSW District Court jury of two counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 16 and one count of sexually touching a child under 16.
The three counts related to a 14-year-old girl with whom Lind was found to have engaged in anal, oral and digital sex. He was 19 and 20 at the time of the offences.
He was found not guilty of an additional count of sexual intercourse with the 14-year-old and one count of sexual intercourse with a different teenager – a 15-year-old.
After being sentenced to 11 months in prison in December 2024, Lind lodged an appeal of his three convictions.
He was on bail for his crimes until the appeal hearing on March 9, 2026, when he was taken into custody.
Lind argued in his appeal that the jury’s not guilty finding on one of the counts of sexual intercourse proved there were “doubts” about the victim’s “credibility”.
He argued that the three guilty verdicts “relied upon the credibility of the complainant” and that he should have been given the “benefit of that doubt” for the two other counts of sexual intercourse with a child.
In the second ground of the appeal, Lind noted the victim and an eyewitness had different versions of events in relation to the sexual touching charge.
He argued that the judge erred by failing to instruct the jury that they must unanimously agree on the facts to render a guilty verdict.
Handing down their decision on Friday, the appeals panel found it was “entirely plausible” for the jury to be “satisfied” with the victim’s account on two of the counts and not on the third.
The panel also said that “different evidence between the witnesses as to precisely what occurred” was “not an uncommon occurrence” during a trial.
“In all the circumstances, there is no reason to conclude that there was an injustice to the applicant in the atmosphere of the trial,” they said in their decision.
The two-year jail sentence, with a non-parole period of 11 months, was upheld.
He will be eligible for parole on February 8, 2027.
Rugby dreams ‘crushed’
During the December 2024 sentencing, Judge John Pickering said that the jury had “utterly rejected” Lind’s version of events that he kissed the 14-year-old, but cut off physical contact before it became sexual.
Judge Pickering said that Lind’s hopes of pursuing a career in rugby sevens had almost certainly been “crushed”.
He said the girl was “fundamentally just a child” in her junior years of high school.
“What occurred here is the jury found he did not draw a line in the sand,” Judge Pickering said.
“He knew he was well and truly over age, and he knew her age. And he decided he would behave in this fashion.
“We don’t want as a society someone who is in Year 9 in a sexual relationship with someone who was well and truly out of high school.”
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