A woman who claims she was raped by a well-known man while she was an intern in Sydney has denied claims she “fabricated” multiple times that she had rejected his advances to make the relationship appear “non-consensual”.
During cross-examination, the woman, who was 19 years old after a man in his mid-30s allegedly raped her, was questioned by defence counsel David Scully SC about inconsistencies between police statements the woman made more than six years after the incident allegedly occurred and evidence presented to the court on Tuesday.
Scully questioned the court why she said she said “no” several times during the alleged rape but did not mention it in her police statement.
The woman, known as the complainant, told the court: “I believe there was more said but I appreciate it was not in my statement.”
The woman appeared in the NSW Downing Centre District Court on Thursday for the second day of a trial expected to last 10 weeks. The man accused of the alleged rape, who Guardian Australia cannot name because of a suppression order, is on trial after pleading not guilty to 12 charges, including six rapes allegedly committed against six women in separate incidents over a six-year period.
Relating to: Woman claims she was asked to catalogue sex tapes before being raped by a high-ranking man in Sydney, court heard
The prosecution alleges that the man often had sexual intercourse with much younger women, that he knew the women were not consenting or that he was reckless against their consent.
The man’s defence claims he had sex with five of the women who claim they were raped, including one complainant. But his defence claims the sex was consensual, “not in the circumstances alleged by the crown” and that the complainants “admired and even idolised the defendant”.
In her statement to police, the woman claimed she told the man “no”. When the man allegedly started rubbing his legs between her legs and raped her, she said to him, “This is [internship] a business matter [and] “I don’t want to do that.” The man then allegedly replied: “It’s like, well, it doesn’t change anything.”
“I made it clear in my mind that I did not want to have sex with her,” she wrote in the statement, also noting that there was “no mutual interaction” during the alleged rape and that she “just laid there and froze.”
Scully asked the woman why she had not mentioned additional information she had given to the court in that statement to police and another statement she made four months later, specifically that the man had allegedly put his arm around her to pull her back after she tried to walk away.
“You’re making this up, aren’t you?” Scully asked the woman during cross-examination.
“No,” he replied.
Scully later asked him if this was something he added “in the course of the mission” “to make it sound less consensual and to support his version of events.”
“No,” he replied.
When asked earlier in cross-examination whether his police statement was “a full account of events”, he said “it was” at that point.
“I spoke to the police officer in charge and [it] obviously this was a long time ago and also it was something that I had never talked about before and I wasn’t really comfortable bringing it up, so [to] “I did the best I could at that point,” he told the court.
The woman was asked if what was on her mind when she was “having sex” with the man was whether it would help her advance in the industry, to which she replied no. She was then asked if it was “part of” her thinking at other “relevant times”.
“When we had a professional relationship, yes… But when I was raped, no, I wasn’t thinking about that,” she said.
Under cross-examination, Scully said the woman alleged that the man raped her a second time, during a visit to his workplace about “four or five” months after the first incident. – It was consensual. But the woman insisted it wasn’t. That incident is not part of the charges against him.
She also asked about a video shown to the court on Wednesday showing her dancing around the workplace wearing a costume during her visit. The woman claimed the man gave her the costume to try on before attacking her.
Scully claimed that the video, which showed her “laughing, smiling and playing the guitar”, was taken after she claimed to have been assaulted, not before, and showed her in a “good mood”. However, she claimed that the video was taken earlier.
In the earlier cross-examination the woman was asked why she had visited the man once again.
“That’s a really good question. As I’ve said a few times, I guess I was confused. I was very young. I really wanted it to be what I thought it would be, which was a business relationship, someone to guide me. But it didn’t happen,” he said.
The hearing continues. The witness remains on the stand under cross-examination by defense counsel.