Court hears DNA evidence is a match

Jul 8 2008 by Les Stewart

DNA obtained from a teenage girl matched that of a Perth businessman accused of indecently assaulting her.

Police scientist Alastair Burt told a jury trial at Perth Sheriff Court that the probability it didn’t come from former Perth restaurateur Farooq Hussain was “one in a billion”.

Swabs taken from the girl’s upper body, and saliva, contained the accused’s DNA, he said.

Mr Burt was giving evidence at the trial of 56-year-old Hussain, of Pitcullen Terrace, Perth.

He has denied four charges of indecently assaulting three different girls at various locations in the city – one of them the Al Farooq Tandoori Restaurant he used to run in County Place, Perth.

That incident is alleged to have taken place on November 26, 2002, when the victim was just 15. He is accused of touching, kissing and fondling her.

A second charge alleges that he also assaulted another girl, then 14, at a flat in Perth between November 1 and November 26, 2002, by kissing and touching her.

Hussain further denies assaulting a third girl, aged 14, at premises in Crieff Road, Perth, on July 1 or 2, 2007, by massaging her shoulders, fondling and attempting to kiss her.

A fourth charge alleges that he assaulted the same girl in a flat in New Row, Perth, on August 4 last year by fondling her and kissing her.

The distraught mother of the teenager allegedly assaulted in the Indian restaurant told the court her daughter arrived home, very upset, and rushed straight to her bedroom.

The mother said she wanted to get in touch with the police immediately.

“But she was panic stricken so I didn’t want to make her any worse.”

She gave her daughter a piece of paper to write down everything that had happened and that was given to police the next day.

“That was the last time she went to the restaurant to work. She wasn’t the same girl.”

The trial, before Sheriff Lindsay Foulis and a jury of nine men and six women, continues.