By Sarah McPhee
Wallabies star Kurtley Beale “did what he felt like doing” when he groped a woman on the bottom inside a Bondi bar, and the act was captured on CCTV, a prosecutor has argued.
Closing addresses began at Beale’s trial in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court on Wednesday before the jury of seven women and five men.
Kurtley Beale arrives at court on Wednesday with his barrister Margaret Cunneen, SC, (left) and wife Maddi Beale (right).Credit: Peter Rae
Beale is accused of groping the 28-year-old woman’s buttock in the Beach Road Hotel on December 17, 2022, forcing her to perform oral sex in a cubicle of the men’s bathrooms and grabbing her hips. He has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of sexual touching.
In his closing address on Wednesday, Crown prosecutor Jeff Tunks took the jury to particular sections of the pub CCTV footage, suggesting they would conclude Beale’s hand moved “downwards” from the small of the woman’s back, before he “swiftly” removed it from her backside, as she stood opposite her fiance.
He asked the jury, “Do you see it?”
“[The] Crown case is there’s the commencement of the intentional touching,” he said.
The Beach Road Hotel in Bondi.Credit: Brook Mitchell
Tunks said it was a matter for the jury, but using common sense and life experience, “There it is in front of you.
“He just met her. What does he do? Invites himself to touch her,” the prosecutor said.
To establish the offence of sexual touching, prosecutors have to prove Beale knew the woman was not consenting or was reckless as to her consent. Tunks said it was “more likely” the latter.
“He just did what he felt like doing, and continued, no matter what,” he said.
The prosecutor said the fact Beale was intoxicated was not something to be taken into account.
The woman described the touching as lasting “maybe a second and a half, like one Mississippi”, and said Beale had touched bare skin.
Asked during cross-examination whether her outfit was “as short as can be” on her, the woman said it was “short enough that if you were to touch my bum, you could grab bare skin”.
Tunks invited the jury to conclude the complainant had been “staunchly consistent” in her evidence that she did not consent to sexual activity with Beale.
He said the jury might have found the woman to have had a “somewhat defiant” or “combative” tone, particularly during cross-examination.
“Whether or not you found her evidence or demeanour to be appealing or likeable is not the point,” he said.
He noted she had sat in a room full of strangers and divulged “extremely private and delicate aspects of her personal life”.
Beale’s barrister Margaret Cunneen, SC, previously told the jury that if they were not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the woman was an honest and accurate witness, in relation to her account, “you could never find Kurtley Beale guilty”.
Cunneen is due to deliver her closing address on Thursday, before deliberations are estimated to commence on Friday.
With AAP