Well-connected Melbourne man found guilty of raping former staffer

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.

The man immediately had his bail revoked, and was taken into custody, but will be sentenced at a later date.

The assault occurred in March ۲۰۲۳, 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.

The judge, Frank Gucciardo, thanked the jury after the verdict for their commitment during the trial.

“Those of us who have worked with juries for a very long time genuinely believe it’s the best system for determining matters like these,” he said.

“From time to time you hear people say that these cases should be judged by experts or lawyers or others, but those of us who have worked with juries know this is the best system we have.”

The prosecutor, Matthew Fisher, said given the man was likely to face a significant custodial sentence he should be taken into custody.

In his closing address to the jury, 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”.

Gucciardo told the jury in his final remarks before they retired to consider their verdict that the case was not about consent as the defence case was that no sexual contact had occurred.

‘I don’t want this’

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.

She 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 ۳am on ۲۴ March ۲۰۲۳.

Police then spoke to the woman, with the exchange recorded on a body-worn camera. The footage of that ۳۵-minute conversation was shown to the jury.

Allegations denied in court

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.