The trial heard that the Melbourne woman – a former personal assistant for the accused – was raped and sexually assaulted after spending an evening with man watching football at his friend’s home. Photograph: Con Chronis/AAPView image in fullscreenThe trial heard that the Melbourne woman – a former personal assistant for the accused – was raped and sexually assaulted after spending an evening with man watching football at his friend’s home. Photograph: Con Chronis/AAPWell-connected Melbourne man found guilty of raping former staffer Jury finds that the man, who cannot be named, assaulted the woman at his home in March 2023
A well-connected Melbourne man has been found guilty of raping a former employee.
The man, who cannot be named, faced two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault in the county court of Victoria, and pleaded not guilty.
After a three-week trial the jury found him guilty of all charges on Tuesday, after deliberating since late on Friday morning. He will be sentenced at a later date.
The assault occurred in March 2023, after the woman said she spent an evening drinking and taking cocaine with the man, while listening to music and watching the football at his friend’s home.
Both the prosecution and the defence argued that the most important witness was the alleged victim – the man’s former personal assistant – who gave evidence over more than four days before a closed court. The man did not give evidence during the trial.
In his closing address to the jury, the prosecutor, Matthew Fisher, said some of the inconsistencies in the woman’s evidence had proved her credibility, as it showed she had not made it up.
But Dermot Dann KC, representing the man, described that as a “desperate submission”. He said the prosecution had asked the jury to swallow a “horrible mixture of lies, fabrications, inconsistencies, [and] evidence that has been shown to be demonstrably untrue”.
The judge, Frank Gucciardo, told the jury the case was not about consent as the defence case was that the alleged offences had never occurred.
At the start of the trial, Fisher said the offences had taken place when the woman was at the man’s house, where he tried to kiss her and sexually assaulted her.
Read moreShe pushed his hands away and told him “I don’t want this”, Fisher told the court, to which the man responded with comments like “You’re so sexy”, “I can’t sleep, help me” and “I need this”.
The woman then felt the man rape her twice, Fisher said.
“She turned around to face him, and at that point she punched him with her fist to his face, to his nose,” Fisher told the court.
“He grabbed his face and said words to the effect of ‘you’ve broken my nose’.
“She got out of bed and said to him: ‘You’re a fucking rapist.’”
The woman went to another room and started taking notes of what happened on her phone, before texting her mother. Her mother called the police despite her daughter’s reluctance to involve them, the court heard.
The police arrived at the property about 3am on 24 March 2023.
Police then spoke to the woman, with the exchange recorded on a body-worn camera. The footage of that 35-minute conversation was shown to the jury.
The trial heard that woman worked as the man’s personal assistant for several months during the previous year, and the pair had resumed contact to discuss other employment opportunities when he invited her to his property.
Dann told the court that none of the offences had occurred. He said the woman had claimed she continued to stay in the house after the alleged offences.
He also said she was reluctant to contact authorities because of a prior allegation involving police but that allegation had been found to be false.
Dann also questioned why she had raised the issue of “recompense” with her mother while she was still at the man’s house.
The court also heard evidence from two of the man’s friends, who saw him and the woman in the hours before the offences, along with another former personal assistant and a friend of the alleged victim.
Two men – a former colleague and a barrister who met the accused when they both served on the board of a prominent Melbourne organisation – also gave character evidence in the trial.
