Former Brisbane Capitals player jailed over brazen attack that left victim traumatised
Ex-basketball player Didan Toto has been sentenced to six months jail for pressing his body against a terrified woman at a Brisbane shopping centre.
An ex-semi-professional basketball player who brazenly pressed his body against a young woman at a major shopping centre left his victim hysterical with fear, a court has heard.
Didan Toto, who played as a forward for the Brisbane Capitals in the NBL One league, was sentenced for assault after prosecutors downgraded a sexual assault charge in Brisbane District Court on Monday.
Judge Ian Dearden sentenced him to six months’ jail with immediate parole release.
The now-24-year-old twice pressed his body against the 22-year-old woman from behind as she queued for sushi at Westfield Chermside at lunchtime on August 2 last year, with the assault captured on closed-circuit-television footage.
The first time he pressed his whole body against her, she brushed it off as an accident and stepped away, but when he repeated it, she turned around and cried: “What the f*** are you doing? Get the f*** off me!”
He did not move and she stepped away.
When police later confronted him he lied, claiming he accidentally bumped into her.
The terrified woman is traumatised and quit her job because she could not cope with the anxiety of falling victim again, the court heard.
On Monday Toto did not walk free, as he is awaiting trial on other charges, the court heard.
Toto, who quit semi-pro basketball when he was injured and represented the state at the under-20s national basketball, has already spent nearly nine months in prison before Monday’s sentencing hearing.
He has a previous conviction for indecent act in a public place,
The Egyptian-born refugee who came to this country in 2005 and became a citizen two years later pleaded guilty to common assault which carries a maximum three-year sentence.
“She was doing nothing more than getting herself lunch,” Judge Dearden said of the woman, who worked at a retail store and was on her break, and was a stranger to Toto.
“It was something that she described has affected her deeply in many ways,” he said.
“She found coming back to work humiliating, she found she was experiencing anxiety every time that somebody came through the door.
“She was embarrassed by her response, hysterically crying for her boss and work colleagues to come down and support her.
“She had to take her work shirt for a DNA test and she lost the feeling of being safe at her workplace,” Judge Dearden said.
“Everybody is entitled to feel safe at the workplace,” he said.
She now works in a call centre to avoid face-to-face contact.
“That’s just awful, a terrible thing to do for any young woman,” he said.
Crown prosecutor Harriet Malcomson told the court that Toto had a three-page criminal history mostly made up of low-level street crime, but had been convicted of indecent act in a public place, a crime Judge Dearden said was “concerning”.
Ms Malcomson described Toto’s actions as “brazen” and submitted a sentence of six to nine months jail was appropriate.
Defence counsel Dominic Nguyen submitted Toto started drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis after he lost his promising basketball career to injury.
He unsuccessfully submitted Toto should serve between one month and three months in jail, with immediate parole due to time already served.
“He is currently remanded on some of the other street level offending in the Magistrates Court,” Mr Nguyen said.
