Shannon Adrian Murphy found guilty of raping woman in Newcastle’s Civic Park

DNA gleaned from a rape victim’s neck – and three discarded cigarettes – has helped convict a sex attacker more than a decade after he preyed on a woman after she had left a Newcastle nightclub.

Shannon Adrian Murphy has been found guilty of the sexual assault of a woman near the fountain in Newcastle’s Civic Park in 2012. Picture: Google Maps.

The random sexual assault of a nightclub reveller in an inner-city Newcastle park has been solved more than a dozen years after the attack after DNA samples found on the victim – and on three discarded cigarette butts at the rape scene – were linked to a man arrested on an unrelated sex charge.

Shannon Adrian Murphy was convicted on Friday of the sexual assault of the 20-year-old woman in Civic Park in 2012.

A NSW District Court judge rejected the now 36-year-old’s arguments that his DNA could have been either innocently transferred to the woman because they were in the same club, that he regularly discarded his smokes walking through the park or that authorities had contaminated the evidence.

And it can now be revealed that Murphy, a glassy at the then called Fannys Nightclub who left the popular venue less than two minutes after the victim, was only linked to the Civic Park rape after his DNA profile was placed onto the state’s DNA database when he was charged for the unrelated offence in 2022.

In handing down his guilty verdict in the judge-only trial, Judge Troy Anderson said the “compelling” case against Murphy included his DNA profile matching that found on the victim’s neck and three cigarette butts found at the scene.

Security footage had shown the intoxicated victim leaving Fannys at 3.06am on that May morning in 2012 and Murphy leaving within two minutes.

The attack occurred sometime between 3.41am and 3.57am.

The victim had left the then-named Fanny’s Nightclub in Newcastle before she was attacked in Civic Park. (File picture Robert McKell)

The woman gave evidence that she woke in Civic Park with a young and muscular man on top of her and a burning sensation to her lower lip before the man ripped off her underwear, raped her and bit her on the neck.

The prosecution case was that the burning sensation was from a cigarette.

DNA from three cigarette butts found at the scene of the Civic Park rape matched Shannon Adrian Murphy’s profile. (File picture)

The woman tried to fight back before her screams startled her attacker into running off as she lay near the park’s fountain with abrasions across several parts of her body.

She climbed a tree, rang her boyfriend and told him she had been raped.

The woman was taken to hospital and swabs were taken of her neck, where she said she had been bitten by the attacker, and the scouring of the suspected crime scene near the park’s fountain found evidence, including three cigarette butts.

The DNA profile taken from the woman’s neck matched her and Murphy, while two cigarette butts also had DNA profiles matching Murphy and the woman.

The woman told the court she woke with her body partially on grass and cement near the Civic Park fountain. A man was on top of her. Picture: Google Maps.

The woman didn’t smoke and Murphy was a heavy smoker.

The victim decided against giving a statement to police at the time and the investigation ended until Murphy’s DNA was placed on a state database following his arrest for the unrelated matter in 2022.

Tests later showed a match with the DNA found at the 2012 Civic Park crime scene.

Murphy’s defence included that the DNA found on the woman’s neck could have been innocently transferred while the pair, who were not known to each other, were both inside the nightclub.

He also argued he would walk through the park regularly and would throw his butts on the ground, that he would regularly give cigarettes away and that the DNA on the butts could have been contaminated during the evidence-gathering process.

But Judge Anderson said although there was evidence an innocent DNA transfer could be theoretically possible, “out of all the people in a hot and sweaty bar, the only DNA found on the complainant’s neck was of that of the accused”.

Judge Anderson said although Murphy said he would have not been in the park that night, the accused did place himself within a few hundred metres of the park after admitting he would have either taken a bus or a train home from a stop or station nearby.

He also spoke of the victim’s “powerful” evidence she gave during the trial and was in no doubt she had been sexually assaulted.

Murphy, who was sentenced to a two-year community correction order last September after being convicted of one count of sexually touching another person without consent, was taken into custody following Friday’s guilty verdict.

He will be sentenced in November.