Sarah Budge left red-faced by John Ibrahim radio admission as couple’s texts read in court
Text messages between Sydney model Sarah Budge and John Ibrahim have been read out in court showing the couple’s tumultuous relationship in the months leading to her home being raided by police. READ THE COUPLE’S TEXT EXCHANGE.
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Sydney model Sarah Budge was desperate to start a family with the Kings Cross identity who called himself “Sexy John” Ibrahim, but says it felt like a “kick to the face” when she heard him declare he was single live on radio.
It sparked just one of the fights in their tumultuous relationship in the months before police found a loaded gun in Budge’s Double Bay apartment during raids in August 2017, she told her Downing Centre District Court trial on Monday.
Text messages sent between the couple while Budge fretted over her dying mother reveal numerous arguments about Mr Ibrahim’s past lovers, and five days before the raids she became furious at an Instagram story posted by one of his ex-girlfriends from inside his bedroom, the court heard.
The 29-year-old’s voice quavered slightly as she said her late mum was due to start chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer the day she was arrested on August 8, 2017.
Budge shared her dreams for the future with Mr Ibrahim, hoping to model part time while she raised their kids and focused on “being a wife and looking after John”, but often felt he was distant and cold in return.
Stressed and struggling as her mum’s health deteriorated, Budge complained that the former nightclub owner ignored her for days on end and treated her as an “afterthought”, the jury heard.
Two weeks before Budge was charged with firearm possession, she’d proudly told her friends and family to tune into a radio interview promoting Mr Ibrahim’s best-selling autobiography but soon felt “like crap.”
The pair has been dating since 2013, yet Mr Ibrahim claimed to be a bachelor on air which humiliated Budge, the court heard.
“I had just worked on the book with him for eight months and he wasn’t giving me any credit for helping him. Then it was a bit of a kick to the face to say you were single,” she said.
“It was very embarrassing.”
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The glamorous owner of Crane Bar in Potts Point blames Mr Ibrahim or someone close to him for planting a stolen Glock pistol and bullets in her bedroom without her knowledge.
Budge said she left a spare set of house keys at Mr Ibrahim’s clifftop Dover Heights mansion because she often locked herself out of her own unit.
Budge said if her 51-year-old partner had ever asked her to hide a weapon for him she would have refused, adding: “there’s no way I’d have something so dangerous near me.”
When asked whether Budge had saved her boyfriend’s number in her mobile phone under a special nickname she replied: “no, he calls himself Sexy John.”
In a series of May 2017 messages sent to ‘Sexy John’, Budge lists the face moisturiser and beard dye she bought Mr Ibrahim before noting he was “in his head” while working on his memoir The Last King of the Cross.
“LOL I love you John, even though you are busy, mentally not here. You will come back,” Budge wrote in one text.
Budge sent another message saying: “I got all these lady vitamins on my way home. I can’t wait to have a family with you, it’s killing me!”
About a week before the dawn raids, Mr Ibrahim was entrusted to take care of Budge’s cavoodle named Zoe but the dog fell off his balcony and broke its pelvis in two places, the court heard.
At that time Mr Ibrahim had never slept over at Budge’s unit and had only visited twice, when he had commented that she “got the small, shitty room.”
Budge said she doesn’t live with her partner of six years, but he allows her to house sit for him when he travels overseas because: “it’s nicer than staying in my little apartment.”
“He’s quite set in his ways and he likes his space and his privacy,” she said.
Budge said Mr Ibrahim asks her to leave the room when people come to his house to talk “business”, but insisted despite his colourful reputation he’s “anti-guns” and not involved in any serious criminal activity.
Budge wore a Givenchy bag worth more than $2,000 to court where she’s been supported every day by her father Mark.
Mr Ibrahim, who is 21 years her senior and owns the building that her restaurant is located in, is yet to accompany her.
The trial continues before Judge David Arnott.