By Sarah McPhee
A woman has broken down in court as she denied suggestions by Kurtley Beale’s lawyer that she instigated an encounter with the Wallabies star and fabricated sexual assault allegations to get sympathy from her partner after an argument.
The now 29-year-old claims Beale, 35, groped her on the buttock at Bondi’s Beach Road Hotel on December 17, 2022, forced her to perform oral sex inside the men’s bathrooms, and bent her over.
Kurtley Beale arrives at court on Wednesday with his barrister Margaret Cunneen, SC, (left) and solicitor Lauren MacDougall (right).Credit: Louise Kennerley
Beale has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of sexual touching. The defence argues the sexual activity inside the cubicle was consensual.
The woman has given evidence she had an argument with her fiance which left them “on bad terms” on the morning of the alleged sexual assault. She went out to a girls’ lunch, drank alcohol, and had two “small lines” of cocaine at her friend’s house, before meeting her fiance at the pub about 10.20pm.
She said she “knew of” Beale but had not spoken to him before introducing herself that night, when she showed him a screenshot from his Instagram of his wedding suits as she liked them for her own nuptials.
Under cross-examination from Beale’s barrister Margaret Cunneen, SC, in Downing Centre District Court on Wednesday, the woman denied she told Beale he looked “so hot” in the photograph.
Kurtley Beale arriving at Downing Centre with his barrister on Wednesday.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Cunneen proposed that the woman had suggested to Beale they “duck off into the men’s”.
“Absolutely not,” the woman said.
“You said, ‘You go in first’, didn’t you?” Cunneen asked.
“No,” the woman replied.
“You followed him after agreement to go in there together,” Cunneen said.
“No,” the woman replied.
“You invited him into your cubicle,” Cunneen suggested.
“No,” the woman said.
“It was you who closed the door when he was in there,” Cunneen said.
“No,” the woman replied.
In response to Cunneen’s suggestion that “nothing happened in that toilet that was causing you any distress”, the complainant replied: “I disagree.”
“It was your idea to get Mr Beale into that toilet cubicle, wasn’t it?” the barrister asked.
“No,” the woman said.
Cunneen suggested the woman thought, “I’ll show him”, after the argument with her fiance.
“Absolutely not,” the woman replied.
She denied further suggestions from Cunneen that she was “using this experience with Mr Beale” to “try and get some sympathy” from her partner.
“You were trying to turn the tables in your relationship so that you were a victim, weren’t you?” the barrister asked.
“No,” the woman replied.
Cunneen said: “It wasn’t any question of Mr Beale getting consent from you, was it? Because you instigated it.”
“No, I didn’t,” the woman replied.
She denied undoing Beale’s zipper or “voluntarily” engaging in oral sex, and said it was “forced”.
When Cunneen put to her that she was in control, had “decided what was going to happen physically” and how long for, the woman disagreed.
She cried and disagreed with the suggestion she had been on the lookout for Beale and “tried to make it look like you came upon him by surprise”.
The woman previously told the court she had been “busting” to go to the toilet. Asked about using the men’s bathrooms, she said she does not “pay attention to the assigned gender” and had seen a queue which she assumed was for other bathrooms including the women’s.
Earlier, Cunneen read out a series of texts between the complainant and her fiance from the hours before the alleged incident with Beale. The woman repeatedly asked her partner if he was OK and said, “Will you come home tonight?” to which he replied, “Not sure yet.”
She asked him where he was, and he replied, “Out”.
The woman’s fiance repeatedly called her “mate”. In one message, she told him he was being mean.
Asked by Cunneen whether she was “getting pretty worried” about her relationship, the woman said: “No.”
Cunneen suggested the relationship was “going down the gurgler”.
“It wasn’t going down the gurgler,” the woman replied.
She disagreed that she had been frantic or desperate to know how to save the situation.
“I was concerned. I don’t like when he’s upset about anything, and he was drunk. He was very short, which was unusual … he calls me ‘mate’ when he’s a little bit drunk sometimes”.
She said she was “being a bit dramatic” when she sent him a text at 9pm: “If you hate me, well, what’s the point?”
“Oh, were you? Do you often do that?” asked Cunneen.
“Not really,” the woman replied.
The woman also messaged her fiance: “Do you still want to marry me?”
Cunneen quizzed the woman about finally meeting up with her fiance at the pub, suggesting his intoxication made it harder for them to talk and “perhaps smooth things over”.
“There was nothing to smooth over in our relationship,” the woman replied.
Cunneen said: “You can’t be serious, madam?”
“Very serious,” the woman said.
The trial continues before Judge Graham Turnbull.
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