Alleged rape case involving prominent Brisbane chef dropped

The case against a prominent Brisbane chef accused of raping a woman in the Calile Hotel has been dropped after a magistrate ruled there was not enough evidence for it to proceed to trial.

Kelvin Zachary Andrews, who was formerly head chef at SK Steak and Oyster in the luxury Fortitude Valley hotel, was accused of one count of rape last year.

Andrews sat quietly in the public gallery of the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Tuesday for his committal hearing, during which three witnesses, including the complainant, gave evidence.

His defence barrister, Angus Edwards, told the court the pair had consensual sex in the Sushi Room, another restaurant in the Calile, on the night of March 12, 2023.

The prosecution’s case rested on what happened after that, when the court heard Andrews and another woman brought the complainant to a hotel room in the Calile because she was heavily intoxicated.

Kelvin Zachary Andrews leaves the Brisbane Magistrates Court after a magistrate ruled there was not enough evidence for his case to proceed to trial.Credit: Cloe Read

The woman had made the reservation for the room and Andrews paid for it with his credit card, the court heard.

They both left the complainant in the room before she began texting Andrews, asking him to come to the room. He later texted that he was coming up, and spent about nine minutes in the room.

Police alleged Andrews raped the woman in that room, and she did not consent.

The prosecution said CCTV footage of the Sushi Room was open to interpretation and was a matter for the jury to decide.

Edwards said there was no evidence that Andrews raped the woman in the hotel room.

“She says she can remember seeing his hands by his belt, the pants. She can remember her legs being lifted up, and nothing else,” Edwards said.

He said the woman claimed she asked Andrews if he had rolled her over, to which he replied that he might have because he thought she was going to be sick.

“In the pretext call [one in which police record the complainant speaking with the accused] he flatly denies there was any sex in that hotel room,” Edwards said.

“He says, ‘I came up there, you were covered in sick, you tried to kiss me, I said no’.”

Edwards said Andrews told the woman: “Tell me you want this when you’re sober in the morning.”

The prosecution told the court a DNA sample was taken from the defendant to compare with the complainant’s medical examination at hospital, but because of “the delays in relation to DNA, no statement has been received”.

Prosecutors also told the court Andrews admitted to having sex in one of the pretext calls.

In the call, he said: “Well, I was, I had my, my, I was inside you, yes, downstairs in the Sushi Room. Downstairs in the Sushi Room, we did yes.”

The complainant then said: “We had sex in the Sushi Room?”

Andrews again answered yes.

The court also heard from the woman who helped the complainant into the hotel room.

She gave evidence that she saw Andrews texting someone in the lift, before he said: “F---, it was all [another person’s] idea.”

Brisbane chef Kelvin Andrews.Credit: Internet

The woman, who was also friends with the complainant, conceded she did not know what the comment was in reference to.

The court heard the woman told the complainant about the comment and what she could remember from the night before. The complainant then said, “he was on top of me, he raped me”, the witness testified.

Edwards asked her if she then said to the friend: “Was I raped? Did he rape me? I couldn’t move my body.”

The woman said the complainant told her “she couldn’t remember much”.

A social worker who assessed the woman said in her police statement the complainant initially did not want to make a report to police.

The court heard she said in her statement: “She’s very worried about that because apparently her boss is high power, or owns a lot of pubs around town, very wealthy.”

Edwards asked if it was fair to conclude that when the complainant first came to the hospital, she was not sure if there had been penetration, or if her drink had been spiked, and it was only after speaking to the friend that she returned and claimed she had been raped.

The social worker replied that people are “very shocked, distressed and traumatised when they come in”, but she could not recall specifically what the complainant said.

Ruling that there was not enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial, Magistrate Jacqui Payne discharged Andrews.

She said the only evidence before her by both the defence and prosecution of sex was the pretext phone call, and there was no direct evidence from the complainant or circumstantial evidence.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732).

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