David Hanna rape trial: Accused’s testimony farcical, says prosecutor

A prosecutor has slammed former union boss David Hanna’s claims he thought the woman he is accused of raping was consenting, saying his testimony was “farcical” and an “affront” to the jury’s common sense.

Dave Hanna arrives at the District Court in Brisbane on Thursday. Picture: Dan Peled/AAP

A PROSECUTOR has slammed former CFMMEU boss David Hanna’s claims he thought the woman he is accused of raping was consenting, saying his testimony was “farcical” and an “affront” to the jury’s common sense.

Hanna, 53, has pleaded not guilty to raping a 30-year-old woman he met at a Fortitude Valley bar in 2017.

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During the trial, which began in Brisbane District Court on Monday, the jury heard Hanna allegedly “took advantage” of the “grossly intoxicated” woman, going home with her, raping her and videoing the assaults.

In his closing address to the jury, Crown Prosecutor Michael Lehane said many witnesses had attested to the woman’s intoxication.

“Blind, paralytic, plastered, hammered, (the woman) fitted all those descriptions,” he said.

“Walking in (her) shoes, those wobbly unsteady high heels, your experience will tell you of course she’s grossly affected by alcohol.

“It’s obvious using your common sense and experience that was her condition and switching those shoes, her gross intoxication would have been crystal clear and undeniable to the accused, he’s no babe in the woods, he’s a man in his 50s.”

Mr Lehane said Hanna’s evidence that the woman consented to sex and having intimate photos and videos taken of her, despite having messaged friends saying “save me” and “Please help me” only minutes before, was “quite ridiculous”.

“This lady is atrociously drunk, you can’t surely think his animal magnetism extends to such dizzying heights that he can woo this female into the cab, that’s just absurd,” Mr Lehane said.

“Clearly he’s looking to take advantage of her intoxication at that time.

“She was essentially helpless and at the accused’s mercy and he simply did the opposite. He treated her in a degrading and humiliating way, acting without her consent.”

The prosecutor urged the jury to find Hanna guilty of the three counts of rape and one of making recordings in breach of privacy.

“The accused showed no mercy,” he said.

“He sexually violated her in various ways without her consent. You would of course find the accused’s version, which has this enthusiastic consent completely implausible and reject it.”

But defence barrister Mark McCarthy dismissed the prosecution case, saying it relied on “speculation and assumptions”.

“It is inescapably clear in my submission that she has embarked upon some sort of exercise from the first day until now to try and explain to herself what happened on that night,” he said of the victim’s evidence.

“She has guessed, she has speculated, she has assumed, she has tried to put together a story in circumstances where from the start she doesn’t have a clear picture.

“She honestly doesn’t remember key details.”

Mr McCarthy urged the jury to find Hanna not guilty, saying the case had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

“She made a series of decisions - you get drunk, you lose your keys and you take somebody home and you wind up in bed with them, you might later think that’s a series of bad decisions,” he said.

“But that doesn’t mean you didn’t consent, the fact that you regret it the next day the fact that you reconstruct a version the next day where it’s not your fault doesn’t mean it was the other person’s fault.”

The jury has now retired to consider its verdict.