Gregory Michael Davis: Wayville firefighter to appeal sexual touching sentence

Both the Crown Prosecution and a senior firefighter found guilty of sexually touching a volunteer during the 2019 bushfires in Casino will appeal the sentence, a court has heard. See why here:

A senior South Australian firefighter will appeal his sentence on multiple grounds after he was found guilty of sexually touching a volunteer during the 2019 bushfires in Casino, a court has heard.

Gregory Michael Davis appeared virtually in Lismore District Court on Monday appealing his May conviction for three counts of aggravated sexual touching of another person.

Gregory Michael Davis

Mr Davis maintains his innocence regarding allegations he started touching a female volunteer on the thigh and tried to kiss her despite her telling him “no”when he was deployed to Casino to fight the December 2019 bushfires.

The court heard during this time, Mr Davis and the woman couldn‘t find an open bar to have dinner at after their working day and decided to return to their motel.

The pair were having a glass of wine in Mr Davis’s room when he started touching her despite her protestations and continued to touch her and rub against her back while not wearing any clothes from the waist down before trying to remove her clothing.

The woman had protested to his actions and had managed to leave the room despite his request for her to stay, the court also heard.

Throughout the hearing Davis maintained everything that happened was consensual.

After about five days of hearings, Mr Davis was convicted and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment with three months non-parole in Lismore Local Court.

However, the SA Metro Fire Service commander from Wayville immediately appealed the conviction and was granted appellants bail.

On Monday,Judge Jonathan Priestley heard Mr Davis would appeal on the grounds of both conviction and severity.

The court heard the crown would also appeal the sentence on the grounds of inadequacy, being that the sentence given was too lenient.

Judge Priestley acknowledged the appeal had a “broad range of disputes”.

He asked the conviction appeal be dealt with first on August 24,2022.

He added Mr Davis could also submit his material for a severity appeal.

The Crown Prosecution will then reply and set out their position for an inadequacy appeal.