Brothel owner Bradley Lester Grey, 54, guilty of 14 rapes
A Canberra brothel owner has been found guilty after he preyed on young sex workers as part of ‘training’ he gave them during their first days on the job.
Canberra Star
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A pimp who preyed on “naive” young sex workers as part of “training” he gave them during their first days on the job faces a long stint behind bars after a jury found him guilty of 20 sex charges.
Bradley Lester Grey, 54, was on Monday found guilty of 14 counts of rape and six counts of indecency following a two week trial in the ACT Supreme Court.
Grey, the owner of suburban brothel, Mitchell Mistresses, sat expressionless in the dock as the jury foreman read the verdicts, which included six acquittals.
He has also been involved with a brothel in Auburn.
The offences Grey was convicted of were committed against seven victims, all of whom he recruited to work at the industrial area knocking shop.
The trial heard Grey recruited the women online with promises of working as high-class escorts earning big pay cheques.
One of the women said the suspected Grey’s promises might be false when he picked her up “in a sh*tty station wagon” at Sydney airport.
She endured one of his “training” sessions shortly after.
The prosecution case against Grey was that the women’s consent was negated, either by Grey’s position of authority over them, or by the fraudulent representations he made.
Crown Prosecutor Trent Hickey argued Grey “didn’t give (the women) a choice to say ‘no’,” and that the “training” he put them through was “simply a sham for him to have sexual intercourse with them”.
Grey’s legal team, spearheaded by barrister Beth Morrisroe, argued the training was legitimate and the women all continued to work at the brothel afterwards.
The jury, of five men and seven women, deliberated for more than three days.
Grey has been in custody since his arrest and extradition from New South Wales in February 2018.
He will return to court in December for sentencing proceedings before ACT Chief Justice Helen Murrell.