AN elderly man accused of 121 charges of sexual assault against children in local Aboriginal communities including Cabarita and Purfleet, will again appear before Newcastle Local Court on July 16.

Robert Holland, who was 61 at the time of his arrest, has been remanded in custody since the first of the charges were laid back in September last year.

He will appear before the court via audio-visual link.

Holland, who lived in Toronto at the time of his arrest is non-indigenous.

He has not yet entered a plea and has appeared before the court several times in November and December of last year and again in February, March and April of this year. He last appeared on June 18.

The charges include sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, committing an act of indecency and buggery. Police investigating the assaults, which are believed to have taken place in various Aboriginal communities between 1957 and 2001, enlisted the media in their search for further information on the case.

After the Great Lakes Advocate published a front page story on the couple’s arrest on September 19, members of the Forster community contacted detectives investigating the matter with information about the pair.

Holland had initially been charged with 39 offences involving eight boys and two girls but due to the public’s response and on-going investigations the number of charges increased dramatically to 121.

The accused has no connection to the former Australian cricketer of the same name, who lives in the Lake Macquarie area.