Warrnambool's Rodney Ryan will face a three-day hearing later this year to contest sexual assault allegations involving four complainants.
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The 55-year-old businessman was charged in May last year with assault, kidnapping, sexual penetration of a child aged under 16 years and two counts of sexual penetration of someone aged under 18.
The charges are historic and relate to a then 15-year-old girl.
Then in June that year police charged the man with allegedly attempting to pervert the course of justice and intimidating a witness.
He appeared in Warrnambool Magistrates Court at the time where police alleged Mr Ryan rang the complainant requesting her to drop the charges.
Further charges were then filed in August which allegedly involved three additional complainants dating back to 2015.
The man appeared remotely in the same court on February 17 for a committal mention hearing.
Magistrate Gerard Lethbridge granted lawyer Will Parker leave to cross examine a number of witnesses in a contested hearing.
The court heard the lawyer, representing Mr Ryan, intended to question witnesses about communication with the accused man before and after the alleged offending, as well as events that occurred in the lead up to the allegations.
The magistrate booked the matter in for a contested committal hearing in mid-October.
Mr Ryan will face court again on that day.
He remains on bail after a successful application in the Supreme Court of Victoria in November last year.
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Jessica Howard
jessica.howard@warrnamboolstandard.com.au
jessica.howard@warrnamboolstandard.com.au
