Frank Zumbo sexual touching hearing continues
A staffer has alleged an adviser to ex-federal MP Craig Kelly repeatedly touched her inappropriately in his Sydney electorate office leading her to stop wearing a skirt, a court has heard.
St George Shire Standard
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A young staffer has alleged a trusted adviser to ousted federal MP Craig Kelly repeatedly touched her vagina in his Sydney electorate office, a court has heard.
Francesco ‘Frank’ Zumbo, 55, has pleaded not guilty to 20 charges of sexual touching and indecent assault after five woman alleged misconduct occurred while they worked in the office of Mr Kelly between 2014 and 2020.
Zumbo denies all allegations – claiming no sexual conduct occurred whatsoever.
At an ongoing hearing before Magistrate Gareth Christofi at Downing Centre Local Court, the young woman – who is the third of five complainants – alleged Zumbo repeatedly touched her vagina in Mr Kelly’s office and in Zumbo’s car, starting in early 2017 when she was just 19.
“Frank would be sitting next to me in the car or sitting next to me in the office, he would put his hand on my thigh and rub his hand down my thigh and against my vagina,” the woman alleged in her evidence.
“He would run his hand up and down on the outside of my pants.”
The woman told the court she was so distressed by the alleged conduct she stopped wearing skirts to work.
“I wore skirts a couple of times and I quickly realised that was a mistake,” the woman said.
“He would put his hand up my skirt and rub my crotch.”
The young woman – an unmarried Christian – was so uncomfortable with the alleged conduct she asked her married friend if the touching was normal.
“I said to her ‘Frank did this’ and showed her what he did, I rubbed my hand down my thigh and down my crotch, and I said ‘is that weird, is that appropriate’,” the woman said.
“She said ‘no, that’s not normal, that’s not appropriate at all’ and that her husband only touched her like that once they were married.”
Lengthy recordings made by the woman and played in court revealed a grave insight into the toxic environment at Mr Kelly’s office in 2017.
The woman gave evidence that she and her fellow young female colleagues would send each other a whale emoji to indicate when Zumbo had arrived to work in a bad mood.
One recording captured Zumbo berating the woman when she declined to eat morning tea with him because she had recently eaten breakfast.
She was then sent to a hot, cramped room to print mail outs, which was thought of as a punishment meted out to the young women by Zumbo.
“The job of doing the envelopes and working in the printer room was often used as punishment because it was really quite hot in that room,” the woman said.
In the recording, Zumbo then started shouting, swearing and physically slamming the photocopier when it jammed.
In a separate conversation that day, the woman told Zumbo she was “scared”, and Zumbo pondered whether she was going to call the police and “dump him in it” about his outburst.
The court heard hours of recorded conversations between the woman and Zumbo about their relationship and the broken printer on October 16, 2017.
“Doesn’t seem like much work got done that day,” Mr Christofi remarked.
Another explosive recording captured a screaming argument between other young female employees after they discovered Zumbo was allegedly using fake social media accounts to monitor their activities after some of them had restricted his access to their pages.
The hearing continues on Wednesday.
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