Corporal David Leslie Marsh acquitted on charges of prejudicial conduct and committing an act of indecency without consent
An air force member who was accused of groping a teenager on the breast and rubbing his groin as a watched another young woman doing push-ups during a training drill has been acquitted of all charges.
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An air force member who was accused of groping a teenager on the breast and rubbing his groin as a watched another young woman doing push-ups during a training drill has been acquitted of all charges.
Corporal David Leslie Marsh, 44, walked from the Defence Force Magistrates Court in Canberra with unblemished record intact after Defence Force Magistrate Wing Commander Joana Fuller found him not guilty of two counts of prejudicial conduct and one count of commiting an act of indecency without consent.
Cpl Marsh, based at RAAF base Williamtown near Newcastle, was accused of rubbing his groin, groaning sexually and saying “Oh my god, look at her arse, the things I could do to her” while a female dog handler did push-ups in front of him.
He was further accused of saying to another young woman “Oh god … the things I would do to that arse” while the woman, then a teenager, was in a squatting position at a firing range.
The most serious charge, of committing an act of indecency without consent, stemmed from him allegedly groping the teenager’s left breast as he slipped a $10 note into her pocket.
Wing Commander Fuller on Friday found the woman at the centre of the complaints was “not deliberately untruthful”, but that inconsistencies in her evidence left open the reasonable possibility that Cpl Marsh’s conduct was lawful.
Cpl Marsh, supported in court by a mate and a chaplain, wiped away tears after Wing Commander Fuller announced her verdict.
Wing Commander Fuller said a man touching a woman’s breast was not “inherently indecent”.
She said Cpl Marsh slipping the $10 note inside the woman’s shirt pocket might have been “imprudent, ill-thought out, or simply impulsive” but that the prosecution had not proven it to be indecent.
She said Cpl Marsh was paying the woman for some Hello Fresh recipe cards “and not for sexual gratification or a sexual motive”.
The woman did not at first report the alleged groping, and at one time said he “brushed” her breast, then later said his hand moved back and forward “three or four times”.
Wing Commander Fuller said there was a reasonable possibility Cpl Marsh was “adjusting” himself in a non-sexual way when the woman was doing push-ups.
She said there she could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the incident at the shooting range took place.