After practically six weeks of proof and addresses from attorneys, 12 jurors retired to contemplate their verdicts on Wednesday afternoon.
Leifer, a mom of eight, has pleaded not responsible and has confronted trial within the Victorian County Court.
Two fees have been dropped in the course of the trial as a result of they pre-dated related laws.
Prosecutors Justin Lewis has requested the jurors to contemplate that Leifer had a bent to have a sexual curiosity in ladies once they have been teenage college students on the college, and when those self same ladies have been scholar lecturers.
He alleged she had a bent to interact in sexual actions with them and make the most of their vulnerability, ignorance in sexual issues and her place of authority so as to take action.
The sisters had an remoted upbringing within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood and acquired no sexual training, the court docket heard.
Lewis stated the sisters had given express proof that they didn’t perceive the sexual nature of what Leifer did to them.
The abuse allegedly occurred on college camps and through personal classes on Sundays on the college and Leifer’s house.
Leifer allegedly abused Meyer once they shared a mattress on a faculty camp, whereas Erlich was pretending to be asleep in the identical room.
Jurors have been instructed Sapper had walked right into a room whereas Leifer was abusing Erlich.
“Mrs Leifer was one of the most respected persons in the community. If Mrs Leifer was doing something then it must be okay,” Sapper stated of seeing what was taking place to her sister.
Erlich instructed the jury she had tried to type a relationship with one other instructor to ask about what Leifer was doing.
“(Leifer) told me it wasn’t healthy for me to have a connection with another teacher, to have more than one mentor,” she stated.
The sisters gave proof over two weeks behind closed doorways.
Other witnesses included these they disclosed their allegations to.
Erlich first spoke to social employee Chana Rabinowitz in Israel in early 2008.
Rabinowitz stated she requested Erlich who damage her and the younger lady replied “it was Mrs Leifer”.
“She was very distraught,” she stated.
“I remember that she was kind of hunched over into herself and she could only whisper what it was.”
Psychologist Vicki Gordon stated she noticed Sapper over a number of months and he or she disclosed that Leifer would contact her throughout her physique and despite the fact that Leifer knew from the start that she did not prefer it, she would proceed.
“She told me it was because I never had any warmth and affection from home – I was more needy than other girls and she was trying to help me get over it,” Gordon learn from her notes, quoting Sapper.
Leifer’s barrister, Ian Hill KC, stated the sisters had revered their former principal, and writing from the time confirmed them thanking her for being supportive.
He instructed jurors that Erlich’s story had been consistently added to, developed and diverse between the allegations being made in 2008 and the trial.
“Truth and reliability were lost in false accounts,” he stated.
“Perhaps even at times hardened into false imaginations and false memories of false realities.”
He criticised Sapper for altering the situation of alleged incidents – first claiming one thing occurred in Melbourne and later altering it to Israel.
“It’s the wrong memory combined with the detail that shows you just how dangerous some witnesses can be when recounting a narrative to you,” he stated.
Source: www.9news.com.au
