Firefighter Gregory Davis denies sexually touching woman without consent

A senior SA fire commander says intimate acts with a female volunteer in NSW hotel room were consensual, but she says none of it was.

A senior South Australian firefighter has told a court he was “in shock” after learning his intimate acts with a woman had led to a complaint against him.

Gregory Michael Davis, 53, from Wayville, is defending four counts of aggravated sexual touching of another person.

A hearing into the allegations had been on hold since April but resumed in Lismore Local Court on Thursday when Mr Davis gave evidence on a video call from South Australia.

The court has heard Mr Davis was a SA Metro Fire Service commander and had accepted a deployment to the Northern NSW bushfires in December 2019.

Mr Davis told the court he had expected to be a strike team leader on the fireground during his deployment.

He met a woman in her 20s, who was a volunteer firefighter, during his flight from Adelaide to Glen Innes.

After learning of her medical skills, Mr Davis asked her to work as his “scribe” in the field and she agreed, the court heard.

Mr Davis told the court he and the woman ended up at the Casino fire control centre after being redirected there from Tenterfield.

He said the pair had no tasks to undertake at Casino and weren’t made to feel welcome.

“We sat and drank coffee and ate lollies,” Mr Davis said. “We were bored.”

He said the woman suggested they go for a drink that evening.

Dinner was provided to the team at the fire control centre and they attended a briefing there about 8pm.

Gregory Michael Davis, from Wayville, has been charged with four counts of sexually touching another person without consent and one count of inflicting actual bodily harm with intent to have sexual intercourse.

After this, they tried several Casino venues which were closed before finding an open bottle shop where Mr Davis paid for a bottle of white wine.

“(I was) thinking we’d probably need to find a table or bench to sit and drink the wine, we were probably going to have to drink it out of the bottle,” he said.

“(She) said we had glasses in our rooms … it was airconditioned, I thought it was a good idea.”

Mr Davis told the court after he gave her the option, the woman suggested they went into his room to drink the wine.

He said he changed from jeans to shorts while she was in the room because it was “oppressively hot”.

He said he pushed the room’s two beds together so the pair could sit together to watch television.

But under cross-examination, he accepted they could have both seen the TV without that action.

Crown prosecutor David Morters asked Mr Davis if he moved the beds to be close to the woman

“Yes,” Mr Davis replied.

“Because you had a sexual interest in her at that time?” the prosecutor asked.

“No,” Mr Davis replied.

Mr Davis said a series of intimate acts took place in his room, but he maintained they were consensual.

He accepted when he tried to kiss her on the lips, she refused the advance.

The court heard the woman’s evidence was that further intimate acts took place beyond what Mr Davis acknowledged.

She claimed none of the intimate behaviour was consensual. Mr Davis has denied this.

He told the court he received a phone call from another senior firefighter the same night of the alleged intimidate encounter, informing him the woman wanted to be redeployed onto the fire ground.

“It didn’t seem unreasonable considering what we had been doing,” he said.

The court heard Mr Davis was married and the woman had a partner.

Mr Davis said he didn’t have reason to be concerned until he received a phone call telling him a complaint had filtered through to his fire department’s leadership.

“I was in shock,” he said. “I knew what had happened the night before but I didn’t know what the allegations were going to be.”

He said he decided to step down from his deployment duties and packed his things to go, but was later told the police were looking for him.

He was charged after presenting at Casino Police Station.

Mr Morters asked Mr Davis whether he asked for the woman to be his “scribe” so he could “have access to her”.

Mr Davis denied it.

“I say that sounds disgusting and disrespectful to me,” Mr Davis said.

He told the court his reasons for believing the woman was interested in him were that she applied “bright lipstick” at one point during the day, asked to go for a drink together and the fact they were “getting on really well”.

The prosecution and defence are expected to deliver their closing submissions on Friday.