Jack de Belin, Callan Sinclair trial: Marijuana message sent before alleged abuse
An alleged rape victim who told police she took marijuana to deal with her trauma actually sent a message to a friend about the drug use before the time the sex took place, a court heard.
Police & Courts
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The woman who accused NRL star Jack de Belin and his friend Callan Sinclair of raping her has denied she thought she was going to an apartment for consensual sex that night, saying she still struggles to sleep.
The woman, who was 19 at the time, is in her third day of questioning in the witness chair at the District Court trial of former State of Origin star de Belin, 29, and Shellharbour Sharks player Sinclair, 23.
Both men have pleaded not guilty to five counts of aggravated sexual assault.
The woman has given detailed evidence of how the men allegedly raped her repeatedly in a North Wollongong apartment in December 2018 after a Santa pub crawl event.
Under cross examination, de Belin’s barrister David Campbell SC challenged the woman’s evidence that she could only “get away” from the two men when they became distracted by a conversation while later in a line at a nightclub.
He played CCTV which appeared to show her reach out and touch Sinclair’s arm as she left.
“It was quite horrific, I don’t get to sleep at night because of it … No I don’t remember that little part at Fever, I’m sorry,” the woman said.
Mr Campbell said a police statement taken from the woman three days before the start of this week’s trial stated she had messaged a friend about smoking marijuana to deal with the trauma of the alleged abuse that night.
He told the court the message was actually sent shortly after 1am, before the alleged abuse took place.
“You went on to tell (police) … ‘because I wanted to stop feeling. I had just been through something traumatic, I felt like my body was treated as an object’,” Mr Campbell said.
The woman said “yes because I thought I sent that message after 2am in the morning, I didn’t know I sent it earlier”.
She said the “nitty gritty” of what happened before she entered the unit was hard to remember two years on.
“I am human, not a robot,” the woman said.
Mr Campbell also claimed the woman knew she was going to the apartment with de Belin and Sinclair when she hopped in a bike-taxi with them that night, rather than going to Fever nightclub where she said she intended to go.
“You were on a journey to engage in some consensual activity with these two men,” Mr Campbell said.
“No I wasn’t,” the woman responded.
The woman had previously told the court she and Sinclair shared a few short kisses at the Mr Crown bar earlier that night which were not serious.
Mr Campbell played CCTV from the bar which showed Sinclair and the woman kissing, Sinclair touching her breasts and the woman making a “V” symbol with her tongue through it.
She denied it was proof she had any intimate affection for Sinclair, whose flatmate she had been spending time with.
“I was not attracted to (Sinclair),” the woman said. I was getting to know his roommate.”
She said the symbol was something she did as a joke from time to time and did not recall all the interactions with Sinclair at the bar.
“I do not recollect what I was doing at that time,” she told the court.
Lawyers for both men said they accepted sex took place that night and both maintain it was consensual.
The trial continues.
