Former Assistant NT Police Commissioner Peter Bravos found not guilty of raping a female officer
‘This has been a horrendous ordeal, we’re both so glad it’s over now.’
Northern Territory
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FORMER NT Police Assistant Commissioner Peter Bravos has been found not guilty of raping a fellow officer after a boozy work function in 2004.
Mr Bravos faced an almost two-and-a-half week trial after pleading not guilty in the Supreme Court to two counts of rape before jurors returned their verdicts yesterday morning.
Mr Bravos remained unmoved as the foreman pronounced him not guilty on both counts but shook hands with one of the security guards as he left the dock and kissed his wife, Cindy Bravos, before walking from the courtroom a free man.
Mr Bravos made a short statement to waiting media as he left the Supreme Court in Darwin shortly before midday, flanked by Mrs Bravos, who had remained by his side throughout the trial.
“This has been a horrendous ordeal, we’re both so glad it’s over now,” he said.
“We always had faith in the jury system.”
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It took the jury of seven men and four women less than two full days of deliberations to reach their unanimous verdict after a 12th juror was discharged on Friday morning due to ill health.
In a recorded interview played to the jury earlier this week, Mr Bravos said while he admitted to having sex with the woman while they were both married in 2004, it was “most definitely” consensual.
“She said we shouldn’t have done that and I agreed with her,” he said.
“I did the wrong thing, she did the wrong thing, we shouldn’t have done that and that was it.”
Prosecutor Nick Papas QC had told the jury it was alleged the woman and Mr Bravos went back to his house after attending an emergency services “triple-0 ball” in November 2004.
Mr Papas said the woman then passed out from a night of heavy drinking and Mr Bravos had sex with her while she was unable to consent as she was either asleep, unconscious or too drunk.
But in his closing address to jurors on Tuesday, Mr Bravos’s barrister, John Lawrence SC, said if there was a reasonable hypothesis consistent with his client’s innocence they had no alternative but to acquit.
“That’s how you’re going to finally analyse and assess and conclude on the evidence before you,” he said.
“That there’s a reasonable hypothesis that on the night in question we got drunk, we got on well, we got on better than well, we peeled off, we went back for coffee, we went back for sex, we’re diving in the swimming pool, the clothes have to come off and sex occurred.
“They go back for coffee — well we all know where this is going don’t we? It’s going where it normally goes, I would suggest — none of us were born yesterday here, we’ve all been around — and it’s going swimmingly.”
The acquittal came after Justice John Burns on Thursday allowed the jurors to disperse for the day early after they told him “tempers are very frayed”.
“I don’t think there’s any benefit to continuing this afternoon,” the foreman said.
Justice Burns instructed the jurors to reassemble at 10am yesterday to continue considering their verdict.
“I appreciate that there’s no point in people getting hot and bothered,” he said.
“(Have) a night to think about it separately, then come back tomorrow morning and recommence your deliberations at that point.”
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Within an hour of the now 11 person jury retiring to continue deliberating yesterday the foreman notified Justice Burns they had reached a unanimous decision and returned their not guilty verdicts shortly after.
Mr Bravos resigned from the NT police force in June last year, after being committed to stand trial for the alleged rapes and the woman is also no longer a police officer.
Originally published as Former Assistant NT Police Commissioner Peter Bravos found not guilty of raping a female officer