Sex assault at drug party splits wealthy Eastern Suburbs friend group

It was the phone call that led to a sexual intercourse without consent conviction and destroyed the bonds of a tight-knit group who had been friends since their days at some of Sydney’s elite private schools.

It was the phone call that broke apart a tight-knit group of rich kids who had been friends since their days at some of Sydney’s elite private schools and liked to get together for drug and alcohol-fuelled parties.

And it saw one of them convicted of sexual intercourse without consent and the rest left divided by the court case.

The call came after an incident at one of their regular parties at a Pearl Beach holiday home belonging to one of the group’s parents.

“I thought you, like I thought you were keen,” the male participant on the call said. “I know I misread it and I know that’s on me, and I know it’s completely wrong cause you obviously weren’t.”

It was December 2, 2016, and the male was unaware there was a third participant on the call — the NSW Police.

The assault happened at a Pearl Beach holiday home.

They were granted a warrant to tap the call after a woman made a complaint to Waverley Police ­Station days earlier that she had been sexually assaulted by the young man.

The pair had known each other for nine years. But they were friends no more.

The woman agreed to a police request for her to call the man to try and extract a confession.

The call gave the police the evidence they needed to charge the young man.

A jury at Gosford District Court found him guilty of sexual intercourse without consent. On August 6 he was convicted and sentenced to a three-year community correction order and directed to perform 450 hours of community service.

The young man has challenged the result with the case set to appear in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on this Thursday.

Neither can legally be identified to protect her identity because she is a sexual assault victim.

The court heard the incident occurred in the early hours of November 22, 2016.

A party had kicked off at the property the previous day in celebration of one of their friend’s birthdays.

There were about 10 people at the property when the woman arrived about midnight.

“Shortly after arriving I took one MDMA cap, a type of drug that gave me a euphoric happy feeling,” she later told police.

It had been about nine months since she had taken the drug previously and it gave her “a happy buzz that lasted about three or four hours.”

The victim and her mother made a complaint to police at the Waverley station. Photo: Damian Shaw

“I also drank six or seven vodka and orange juice drinks between midnight and 6am,” she told police. About 2am she “sniffed a line of MDMA”.

By 6am “I felt sober”, she told police.

After a 6.30am swim in the ocean a number of the group got in the spa.

The man was also in the spa and touched her underneath the waterline on the outside of her bikini bottoms.

The woman got out of the spa and told her friends: “Dude (the man) was just touching me in the spa.”

She then went to the house for a shower, after which she put on a T-shirt and laid down on the couch.

The male also laid on the couch with her in a spooning position and attempted a similar move.

The woman said: “What’s the time?” and left the room where she found friends before breaking into tears.

In his statement to police, the man said he thought his approach was welcome and that she had been “grinding” on him.

“She did not remove my hand or stop grinding on me or signal for me to stop in any way,” he told police.

“I then placed my hand into the waistband of her pants as she appeared eager to get more personal.”

The identity of those involved cannot be revealed to protect the victim.

Two days later, with the group’s gossip mill in overdrive, he sent her an apologetic text.

“I can’t imagine what the past few days have been like for you and what I’ve put you through and I probably never will and I am so unbelievably sorry for that,” he wrote. “I know I’ve f. ked up so badly and that it’s on me.”

On November 26, she went to the police with her mother. After the tapped call, he was charged in March 2017.

Later in 2017, it emerged there had been a similar interaction between the pair during another party at the property in 2013, where he had again touched her in the spa.

“I was really uncomfortable because I thought he had a girlfriend and there was another girl in the spa with us,” she told police.

Later, he got into a bed with her, zipped their sleeping bags together and touched her intimately.

When she asked if he had a girlfriend, he said: “No, we broke up” or “No, we’re on a break”, the woman told police.

Police discovered he did have a girlfriend. That woman gave a statement for the case that said he texted her that night apologising.

Another of the friendship group told police, the man sent his girlfriend a text that said: “I am so sorry” and “I don’t know what happened”.

It became known among the group as “the midnight mistake”, court documents said.

She also told investigators she broke up with him in 2015 “and subsequently found out he was cheating on me.” She hadn’t spoken to him in two years.

About a week later, the ex-girlfriend ran into the victim at The Golden Sheaf Hotel in Double Bay.

“I weirdly walked up to (the victim) and apologised by saying something like: ‘Hey, sorry things got weird for you’,” she told police. “The funny thing is that (the victim) and I became good friends after that.”