Scott Robert Owen pleads not guilty to rape of 11yo at Atherton party, trial delivers hung jury

The trial of a man charged with raping and indecently treating an 11-year-old girl at a party on the Atherton Tablelands has resulted in a hung jury.

The girl claims she was raped at a party for adults while her mother slept in a nearby room.

The trial of a man charged with raping and indecently treating an 11-year-old girl at a party on the Atherton Tablelands has resulted in a hung jury.

Scott Robert Owen pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and one count of indecent treatment at the start of a trial before Judge Joshua Trevino KC in the Cairns District Court last Friday.

After extensive deliberations, a hung jury was declared on Thursday.

During the trial, the court was told the 11-year-old girl who claimed a song reminded her of being raped formed part of a “teenage drama” and series of “snowballing lies” designed to elicit sympathetic reaction from her friends.

The 11-year-old girl claimed she was lured to a bathroom during a party on the Atherton Tablelands and raped.

Principal crown prosecutor Aaron Dunkerton told the trial the girl was woken in the middle of the night by someone she described as having a big hand rubbing her chest.

He alleged Mr Owen kissed the girl, followed to her to the couch and ushered her in the bathroom where he is alleged to have raped her.

However, Mr Owen’s defence counsel Brydie Bilic told the jury in her closing submission the girl’s story “could not be relied upon on” as it was “not reliable or credible”.

Ms Bilic said it was not plausible that the girl would have been “raped in the mechanism she describes” then gone straight away to lay next to her mother or pass her sister who was sleeping on the couch without saying anything.

She also said it was highly unlikely Mr Owen would have taken the risk of raping an 11-year-old in the bathroom near to where her mother was sleeping and in a house full of partygoers.

“It could not happen that this could occur without somebody in this house full of adults hearing something, seeing something untoward, it just doesn’t make any sense,” Ms Bilic said.

She said the girl changed her story about whether the light was on or off, what the man was wearing and that she said she was raped against a wall but this would not be possible because there is a towel rack where the girl never mentioned.

Ms Bilic pointed to one example where the girl was with her friends months after the alleged incident where when the song Temperature by Sean Paul was played she is alleged to have remembered what happened and a vision of “what it felt like”.

Ms Bilic said it was notable that the song would never have been played at a party for older people with a playlist made up of Slim Dusty, Jimmy Barnes and Tracy Chapman.

Ms Bilic suggested the girl started a “teenage drama” to elicit sympathy from her friends.

She said when the girl’s mother heard about the allegation and confronted her daughter about it, the girl had a chance to “set the story straight or dig a deeper hole. She chose to dig a deeper hole”.

However, Mr Dunkerton told the court they needed to appreciate the difficulties of being a young girl and giving evidence and being cross-examined.

“Every time someone tells a story they tell it differently,” he said.

“This was not an evolution of a lie.”

Originally published as Scott Robert Owen pleads not guilty to rape of 11yo at Atherton party, trial delivers hung jury