By The Guardian (World News) | Created at 2024-09-27 08:15:12 | Updated at 2024-09-30 11:31:21
3 days ago
A high-profile Sydney man told police shortly after he was arrested that he was “severely disturbed” and in shock by one woman’s allegation he raped her and claimed that they had “made love”, a court has heard.
In a video played to the court of the man’s interview with police the day he was arrested, he was asked about allegations by two women that he had raped them.
Hetold police in the interview that the allegations were “fabrications” and “alterations of the truth”.
“I wish to say to each and every one of those specific cases that I deny those things happened in the way that you described them,” he said to police.
The two women he was asked about in the interview that was played to the court were the third and fifth complainants to appear before the New South Wales Downing Centre district court in a trial expected to last 10 weeks.
The man, who Guardian Australia cannot name due to a suppression order, is facing trial after pleading not guilty to nine charges – which include five counts of rape – alleged to have occurred over a six-year period against five women on separate occasions.
The crown is arguing the man had a tendency to carry out sexual conduct with usually much younger women, knowing that they did not consent or that he was reckless to their consent.
The man’s defence argues that the sex with five women who allege he raped them was consensual, “not in the circumstances alleged by the crown”, and that the complainants “admired the accused, even idolised him”.
Asked by police in the interview if he was in a sexual relationship with one of the women, known as complainant three, he told police: “We were engaged in a relationship, yes, absolutely.”
Earlier in the trial, complainant three told the court the pair had had consensual sex twice before he allegedly raped her.
Under-cross examination, she told the court that she had feelings for the man, but later came to the opinion that she had been “groomed”. She also told the court that there were “a few things” about her first sexual encounter with the man that she now remembered “quite differently” to what she initially said in her police statement.
In his interview with the police, a detective told the man that complainant three had reported she verbally said no, and was crying during the alleged rape.
“That’s disturbing, I deny that that happened,” the accused responded to police. “I am disturbed that she would say that, severely disturbed she would say that. That’s disgusting and it’s just not who I am.”
When asked again about complainant three’s version of events during the alleged rape, he said: “I’m not even going to try to restate that, it’s an absurd comment.”
Asked by police about his version of events, he said they “essentially made love”. He later said there was no crying and that it was “intimate” and “sensual”.
Asked by police if he recalled the woman coming to his house to confront him about the alleged rape, and that he apologised, he said: “I deny her ever using, or myself ever apologising, for anything to do with those heinous acts you describe.”
The police asked if he recalled complainant three coming to his house on a different occasion to when the alleged rape occurred.
“Was this the time she would walk past my house without me knowing? I would sometimes witness her kind of walking past, and she [would] kind of just roam in my area,” the accused responded.
“She would walk past my house and would look in.”
The accused told police that he recalled sending complainant three a message “inquiring” as to whether allegations he had raped someone “stemmed from her”.
Asked if he had then threatened to then sue her for defamation, he said he had not.
“I consider her a friend, as well as I do [complainant five],” he said.
Asked by police about complainant five’s accusations that he had raped her, he said: “I completely deny. It’s just not the truth.”
He later said to police: “OK, look … [complainant five was] pretty much stalking me and hounding me, and actually, I mean, in more cases than not [complainant five] has forced herself upon me than actually me on her … So I deny that claim completely.”
On the occasion complainant five – who was then 29 – alleges he raped her, she had been at a party and after exchanging texts with the accused, he picked her up in his car and took her to his home, the court heard. Once there, she went upstairs to his bedroom because he had a meeting downstairs, and locked her in the bedroom, she alleges.
Under cross-examination, the complainant denied the defence’s assertion that she was “completely making the incident up”.
The court heard the complainant said in her statement to police that she thought she and the man were going to “be together” and that she “had an obsession with him”.
Earlier on Friday, a juror was discharged from the panel of 15, with the reason being placed under a suppression order until a verdict is delivered.
“It won’t affect your continuing role as a jury,” Judge Jane Culver told the jury. “It’s unfortunate I had to let him go.”
The trial continues.
