Cairns crime: Alan Vico denies raping student

A man who has pleaded not guilty to rape told Cairns District Court the woman did not appear drunk and enthusiastically agreed to sex. Read what else he had to say.

A MAN accused of raping a 20-year-old exchange student insisted she “enthusiastically” agreed to go to a motel and readily consented to sex, Cairns District Court heard on Friday.

Former Ports North executive Alan George Vico, 56, has pleaded not guilty to rape.

Crown prosecutor Claudia Georgouras has argued the woman did not have the cognitive capacity to consent to sex because she was extremely intoxicated.

The court has heard the woman had an estimated blood alcohol content (BAC) of .229 at the Woolshed at 10.22pm.

At 7am the following morning, her BAC was .102.

Former Ports North executive Alan Vico, 56, has pleaded not guilty to rape in Cairns District Court. The trial will enter a second week on September 12.

The jury has been shown CCTV footage of the woman appearing to be drunk at the Woolshed, outside Gilligan’s and in a cab.

She got out of the cab on Sheridan St in Cairns North, where Mr Vico saw her and did a U-turn and pulled over beside her.

Witness Rachel Friend, the former motel manager, told the court earlier in the week a woman carrying a room key and a $20 note appeared at 7am on September 21, 2018, “crying and distressed”.

“She said she did not know where she was, or how she got there,” Ms Friend said.

Mr Vico denied the woman appeared overly intoxicated or that he smelled alcohol on her.

Under cross-examination by Ms Georgouras, he was asked if it was not true the woman said “***k me”, Mr Vico said she certainly said that.

“She was perfectly coherent,” he said.

“She was not behaving erratically. She was not grossly intoxicated.”

Cairns District Court has heard that Alan Vico, who has pleaded not guilty to rape, took a 20-year-old Norwegian student to the Southside International Motel at Earlville on September 20, 2018.

He denied the woman was falling asleep in his car.

He did not accept Ms Georgouras’ suggestion there were discrepancies between what he told police and what he told the court about the night.

In the police interview played to the court, Mr Vico was asked when he last had sex that might have needed a condom and he said he had sex with his partner “the night before last”.

Police found three used condoms in a bin at Mr Vico’s home.

He told the court that in the motel room, he wrapped the used condoms in a tissue, put them back in the condom box and took them home.

“I was just being tidy,” he said.

Ms Georgouras said he took the condoms home because he knew having sex with the woman was a crime.

“No, it was totally consensual,” Mr Vico said.

He said when police arrived with a warrant at his home at 6pm the following day, they bullied him, walking in on him naked in the toilet at his home, refusing to let him get dressed until they took him to the police station.

The trial before Judge Judge Michael Rackemann continues.

Originally published as Cairns crime: Alan Vico denies raping student