A 22-year-old swim instructor has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting nine young students at a Sydney pool. Kyle James Henk Daniels faces 26 charges, including multiple counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10 and indecent assault, relating to incidents between February 2018 and February 2019 at a Mosman swimming centre.
In pre-recorded evidence played in the New South Wales district court on Tuesday, the mother of two sisters who complained about Daniels testified that her youngest daughter described the alleged assault as feeling like a “worm inside of her”. The girl said she squeezed her legs together for the rest of the lesson to prevent it happening again.
The youngest alleged victim told police she was lying on her back using a kickboard when her teacher pushed her private parts “very hard and it hurt”. She said she felt something wrong and inspected the area, feeling better after pulling her swimming costume out. She described the sensation as “a little bit sore and a little bit like a worm was in it”.
The older sister alleged Daniels touched her inappropriately twice, about two weeks earlier. She wrote a note stating: “The reason I didn’t like my swimming lesson was because my teacher touched my …” She later explained the missing word was “vagina”. The mother said she initially assumed the incidents were accidental but reported them after the second complaint.
The girls’ parents informed the swim school, sparking a police investigation that led to similar allegations from other students. The trial before Judge Kara Shead continues.
