Dominic Edmund Hansson on trial for allegedly raping female friend for ‘sick, selfish sexual gratification’

An openly gay Queensland man is standing trial accused of raping his female friend in her own bed for his own “sick selfish sexual gratification”, a court has heard.

Dominic Edmund Hansson, an openly gay Queensland man, is on trial for allegedly raping his female friend. Picture: Liam Kidston

An openly gay Queensland man is standing trial accused of raping his female friend in her own bed for his own “sick selfish sexual gratification”, a court has heard.

Dominic Edmund Hansson was in the District Court in Brisbane on Monday accused of forcing his friend to have sex with him in her inner city Brisbane apartment in the early hours of December 7, 2019.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charge, and he told police in his formal interview two years ago that “she was touchy feely and wanted to have sex with him” and that he was curious about what sex with a woman would be like.

The woman told police that Mr Hansson, then aged 25, turned up drunk at her front door at about 1.30am on the morning of the rape, asking to be let in.

She let him in but told him he must sleep on the couch, he insisted he sleep in her bed, telling her “Don’t worry you are safe”, a claim she believed, Crown prosecutor Chris Cook told Judge Catherine Muir in his opening address to the jury.

Mr Hansson is alleged to have then raped her despite her pleas for him to stop.

“Stop, what are you doing?”, she told him, the jury heard.

“Please you want this as much as I do”, he allegedly replied.

According to prosecutors, she replied: “Dom please stop” and he allegedly replied: “I know you like it rough”.

Dominic Hansson outside Brisbane Supreme Court. Picture: Liam Kidston

He overpowered her and held the back of her neck, afterwards saying: “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while”, the prosecution alleges.

Mr Cook said that Mr Hansson knew the intimate details of the woman’s unorthodox sex life and he taken this knowledge as his entitlement to treat her like an object “for his own sick selfish sexual gratification”.

Mr Cook said that Mr Hansson, who was in a long-term live-in relationship with another man at the time, knew his alleged victim’s interest in erotic acts involving bondage and domination known as BDSM.

He said that when she chatted with Mr Hansson during their friendship she told him that she went to BDSM events and used dating apps, sometimes using ropes and that she had a photograph with some ropes on her fridge.

She also told him she was involved in spending time with older men, known as Sugar Daddies and they would pay her, and she took part in explicit adult website OnlyFans.

Mr Cook alleges that the morning after the rape Mr Hansson manipulated her, telling her to “send me a message saying nothing happened” so he could show his partner Tony Rickards, a property developer, that he slept on the couch that night.

Mr Hansson allegedly told the woman: “If Tony finds out what happened, I will kill myself, I can’t lose him, do you understand this?” and she agreed to send Mr Hansson the message saying nothing happened.

Mr Hansson then went home to Tony and lied, saying he had fallen asleep on his friend’s sofa.

That night the woman went to Mr Hansson’s home to find out if he had any sexually transmitted diseases, but ended up consoling him as he cried saying “Tony can’t find out”.

They later exchanged phone app messages where Mr Hansson reminded her of his threat to harm himself if Tony found out about them having sex, and also accused the woman of drug dealing and prostitution, and in a “secret” Facebook Messenger message he is accused of telling her “You asked for it” when asked why he had raped her.

The woman reported the alleged rape to police four months later on April 21.

In a pretext call the woman made with police a month later, Mr Hansson allegedly claimed that he made “a silly mistake” and told her it was “harsh and untrue” for her to suggest that he had taken advantage of her.

In his formal police interview weeks later Mr Hansson told police that despite being gay he had sex with his female friend as he was “curious”, and he wondered whether in fact he was gay.

He told police that afterwards she told him to stay the night at her place, and he denied he was drunk, saying that the woman had invited him over to her home and that she initiated sex.

He told police he was “a very moral person, a very gentle person” and that the woman was an escort and she had mental health issues.

He told police that he had a hard time undoing the woman’s bra, but Mr Cook told the jury that the alleged victim told police she was not wearing a bra that night.

Evidence given to the jury is set to include 96-pages of Facebook Messenger messages exchanged between Mr Hansson and the woman, as well as an audio recording made on the woman’s phone of a conversation with Mr Hansson when she confronted him in May 2020.

The trial continues on Tuesday and is expected to run until Thursday.

Originally published as Dominic Edmund Hansson on trial for allegedly raping female friend for ‘sick, selfish sexual gratification’