Two men standing trial in Cairns Court for alleged Cooktown rape offer differing accounts of ‘threesome’

One of two men facing trial for the rape of a Cooktown woman simply shrugged and said “she had a choice” when asked by police if he had sex with her without consent, a court has heard.

One of two men facing trial for the rape of a Cooktown woman simply shrugged and said “she had a choice” when asked by police if he had sex with her without consent, a court has heard.

On Tuesday, the Cairns District Court heard the second day of a trial, in which two men are accused of raping a woman in her home in Cooktown.

Both pleaded not guilty at the start of the trial on Monday.

Neither man can be named because it might identify the complainant.

Before the first man’s police interview was played in the courtroom, Judge Gregory Lynham directed the jury about complex kinship systems in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies.

No blood relationship

One of the defendants had been described as a close relation of the complainant, but the judge told jurors that elders are often referred to as “uncle” or “aunty”, and other members of the community can be referred to as “brother” or “sister” when no blood relationship exists.

Detective Senior Constable Brendan Potter, who in 2019 was with Cooktown Police, gave evidence about what is alleged to have happened on the night of December 18 and the early hours of the following morning.

He interviewed both defendants in the days after the alleged rape.

In the first interview, the “cultural relation” of the woman said the three of them had drunk together at a hotel in Cooktown before the complainant invited them both to her house nearby.

The rape is alleged to have occurred in Cooktown after a night of drinking and cannabis smoking, when the discussion is said to have turned to a “threesome”. Picture: Brendan Radke

There they smoked cannabis and drank more alcohol, he said, before talk turned to sex and having a “threesome”.

“Things started to heat up,” he said, and they had sex.

He said that involved intercourse and oral sex with each man, and it included voluntary anal sex with him.

In the second man’s police interview, he said, “I understand what you’re investigating but I don’t understand what the hell’s going on”.

He said he did not recall the complainant saying much at all.

He said he lay on a mattress on the floor while the other two were having sex on the mattress on the bed.

Second man ‘invited’ for sex

They invited him up onto the bed and he had sex with her as well, he said.

“We had sex together, and that’s all I can say, there’s no other way to put it.

“Honest to God I don’t know nothing more about that night, there was nothing forced on to her,” he said.

Asked if he had consent for sex, he said, “I didn’t get told no and she didn’t say no to me”.

Under cross examination by counsel Tim Grau for the first defendant, Detective Senior Constable Potter agreed there was a difference in the complainant’s two statements to him.

In her first statement on December 19, 2019, she said she had never had sex with the first defendant before that night, and in a further statement on January 21, 2020 she agreed she previously had a threesome with him.

The trial before Judge Gregory Lynham will resume on Wednesday.

Originally published as Two men standing trial in Cairns Court for alleged Cooktown rape offer differing accounts of ‘threesome’