Detail in alleged abuser’s case slammed

Lawyers acting for the man accused of abusing activist Manny Waks as a child have criticised police inaction for causing delays.

Zev Serebryanski, also known as Velvel, is facing a committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court where a magistrate will decide if there’s sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to trial.

The 60-year-old was extradited from the US last year and is facing three charges of indecent assault and one charge of taking part in an act of sexual penetration.

Mr Waks, who has given NewsWire permission to identify him, alleges he was sexually abused in the late 1980s while a child within Melbourne’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

It’s alleged Mr Waks was abused at the Yeshivah Centre in St Kilda East, a synagogue and learning centre, after the family moved from Sydney in 1985.

On Thursday, the court was told Mr Waks had first made a complaint to police in 1996 but little was done until Detective Senior Constable Michael Simonsen was assigned the case in January 2012.

“I ascertained there had not been effectively an investigation in relation to this matter,” he said.

“In the paperwork it’s just marked pending whereabouts … the main reason was on the back of the accused being overseas.”

Constable Simonsen told the court that over the following two years the case was periodically reopened to add additional witness statements before a brief of evidence was prepared in July 2014.

But he told the court the brief was not authorised at the time because the penetration allegation was “statute barred” at the time and extradition was “unlikely to be granted”.

Constable Simonsen, who remained on the case until 2018, was criticised by Mr Serebryanski’s barrister Ian Hill KC for failing to take investigative steps such as having photos taken of the Yeshivah Centre or seeking out any witnesses that may have been present.

“What hasn’t been done is you doing your job of investigating the matter properly,” Mr Hill said.

“Nothing happens on your watch.”

Constable Simonsen conceded there were “large gaps” in the investigation but said he had been instructed by his supervisors.

Also on Thursday, close school friend Yerachmiel Gorelik told the court that Mr Waks raised allegations of abuse at “Velvel’s apartment and the synagogue” when they were aged about 11 or 12.

“When he shared it with me my understanding was it was ongoing in progress,” he said.

Mr Gorelik said he did not inform their teachers but shared the allegations with some friends in their class.

The court was told Mr Gorelik provided a statement to police in 2013 after Mr Waks asked him to four years earlier.

But he agreed he’d earlier written an email to Constable Simonsen saying there were “big holes in my memory”.

“I just can’t give testimony with a clear conscience,” Mr Hill said he wrote.

“It’s been something like 20 or so years that these matters have not even entered my mind.”

The hearing continues.