US Marine Anthony Long faces five-day Robertson Barracks rape trial
An American soldier allegedly ‘forced himself’ on a hungover woman after she told him she was too sick and ‘the room was spinning’.
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A woman who was allegedly raped by an American Marine at a Top End army base told investigators she was on the verge of vomiting when he ‘forced himself’ on her.
Anthony Long appeared in the Supreme Court in Darwin on Monday to plead not guilty to having sexual intercourse without consent at the Robertson Barracks in late 2023.
It was alleged that the then 24-year-old American soldier raped a woman after she told him she was too hungover to have sex.
Prosecutor Rhiannon McGlinn told the jury that the night before the alleged sexual assault, Mr Long and the woman were on a Mitchell St pub crawl.
Ms McGlinn said after a night of drinking they returned to the army base, with his alleged victim so intoxicated she threw up in the Uber.
Ms McGlinn said they fell asleep in the same bed, and when she woke up she was feeling the effects of the night before.
“When she woke up she felt very sick, she was hungover. The room was spinning,” Ms McGlinn said.
The jury heard that the next thing she felt was Mr Long touching her breasts and genitals.
“No I’m not feeling well. If I move I’ll vomit,” she allegedly told him.
Ms McGlinn said while he backed off “for a little bit”, it was alleged that soon after she felt him touching her again, before he “forced himself on her”.
Ms McGlinn alleged the alleged victim kept her eyes closed and froze during the alleged assault.
“She could hear the accused laughing,” Ms McGlinn said.
Ms McGlinn said under the law, consent was defined as “free and voluntary agreement”, which she argued the woman had not given.
“A person is not to be regarded as having consented to an act of sexual intercourse only because they did not protest or physically resist,” she said.
Over the next four days the alleged victim made disclosures to her mother and friends, before going to NT Police.
In a brief address to the jury, defence barrister Peter Maley said the trial would boil down to a single factor: “the issue of consent”.
Mr Maley claimed the woman told police “at the time I thought it was OK”.
“It is not enough to say in hindsight, in retrospect ‘I’ve changed my mind’,” he said.
“You can’t retrospectively withdraw your consent.”
It is expected across the five-day trial the jury will hear from more than a dozen witnesses, including evidence from the alleged victim herself.
Justice Meredith Huntingford told the jury of nine men and three women they must “approach the matter with a completely unbiased and impartial mind”.
The trial continues on Tuesday.
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