Naval officer Callum Hicks’s lawyer argues officer’s choking of woman was a ‘joke’ and ‘larking around’

A naval officer accused of erotically choking a woman after prodding her for details about her sex life was ‘larking around’ and joking, his lawyer says.

HMAS Watson, where Sub Lieutenant Callum Hicks allegedly choked a woman during a black tie function.

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A naval officer accused of erotically choking a woman after prodding her for details about her sex life was “larking around” and joking, his lawyer says.

Sub Lieutenant Callum Hicks has pleaded not guilty to indecency and assault charges stemming from the alleged choking and a separate incident in which he allegedly rubbed a woman’s thigh under the table at a restaurant in Melbourne.

At a Defence Force Magistrate Court hearing in Canberra, Sub Lieutenant Hicks’s lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Matthew Tyson, said of the choking: “clearly it’s joking” because Sub Lieutenant Hicks and the woman were both in “committed relationships”.

“Properly looked at, this was humorous, ham acting, larking around between two adults,” Lieutenant Commander Tyson said.

Sub Lieutenant Callum Hicks has pleaded not guilty to indecency and assault charges.

Sub Lieutenant Callum Hicks.

He said there was “nothing inherently sexual” about putting a hand on a woman’s throat, even though Sub Lieutenant Hicks had asked her whether she liked being sexually choked, the court heard.

“This conduct does not amount to an act of indecency,” he said.

Lieutenant Commander Tyson was also critical of the woman’s evidence.

“It did have very much the flavour of ‘this is my script, I have learnt it, and I am reciting it’,” he said.

“In my respectful submission, she’s not a credible witness.”

He said the woman might have been motivated to complain about Sub Lieutenant Hicks after answering his questions about her sex life and “opening herself up to rumours and gossip”.

“We say that the conversation she had was highly inappropriate.”

The prosecution case is that Sub Lieutenant Hicks was asking the woman whether she liked rough sex, including hair pulling, anal sex, “gaping” and being choked before he put his hand on her throat and asked her if she was turned on.

In his closing address, prosecuting officer Lieutenant Commander Simon Lindsay said Sub Lieutenant Hicks saying he was “going to try something” before he choked the woman showed “he was going to try something rather than asking whether he could try something”.

“In the context of the prior sexual conversation, it establishes the necessary sexual connotation to the act,” he said.

Defence Force Magistrate Brigadier Michael Cowen, QC, will deliver his verdict on all three charges against Sub Lieutenant Hicks on Wednesday.