Anthony Lister: Sydney street artist to face sexual assault trial
Prominent street artist Anthony Lister will face trial, a court has heard, after being accused of assaulting five young women while he sat at the peak of the Sydney art scene.
Police & Courts
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Sydney street artist Anthony Lister will face trial charged with drugging and sexually assaulting young women after allegedly luring them in with promises of a path into the art world.
The Brisbane-born artist’s lawyer, Bryan Wrench, told Downing Centre Local Court the case against Lister was going to trial after a short negotiation with police prosecutors.
Lister previously vowed the fight the charges that followed a police raid on his Marrickville home and industrial space in March.
Officers charged the 40-year-old after they allegedly seized replica pistols, knuckle dusters and illegal drugs – including ice, cocaine, MDMA and cannabis – as well as electronic devices.
But the charges that shocked the art world – prompting the removal of his work from a gallery and the defacement of his public tags around the city – included five counts of sexual intercourse without consent, using an intoxicating substance to commit an indictable offence and grievous bodily harm.
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Police, at the time, alleged Lister had assaulted four women – three of them art students – at his Darlinghurst home between 2015 and 2018.
He allegedly tattooed three lines onto one of the women without her consent on November 28, 2015.
A second round of charges followed last month after a fifth woman told police she was indecently assaulted by Lister at a Waterloo studio in 2015.
The court, on Thursday, heard Lister’s legal team and the Director of Public Prosecutions had received the police brief of evidence but a drug analysis certificate was still outstanding.
Neither Lister or any of his alleged victims appeared in court as the matter was set down to return on August 6.
The graffiti artist has previously said he’ll fight all of the charges but if convicted faces a lengthy prison sentence.
He remains on bail.