Colin Charles, Shams Rehman, and Joseph Deepak charged over alleged BDSM gang rape
GRAPHIC CONTENT: A Melbourne tech entrepreneur accused of orchestrating a BDSM gang rape allegedly said “welcome to your gang bang” to the bound and gagged woman.
Inner East
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Three men charged over the alleged BDSM gang rape of a tied up and gagged woman claimed she was into it because she had already consented to “a million and one” deviant sex acts.
Colin Charles, 36, Shams Rehman, 64 and Joseph Deepak, 40 faced Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday charged over the sexual assault of a bound, gagged, blindfolded and deafened woman after allegedly surprising her with group sex she had not agreed to.
On the night of the alleged group sex turned gang rape the woman was tied up completely gagged, blindfolded and had noise cancelling ear buds in her ears.
Mr Charles allegedly brought Mr Deepak and Mr Rehman into the bedroom and it is alleged the three engaged in sexual acts with the woman against her will.
The court heard the woman said she didn’t know there were other people present at the time and had not consented to group sex.
The three men argued in court that they were not reckless in assuming consent, claiming it was “highly unlikely” she didn’t know there were multiple men present.
The joint defence argued that through the complainant’s actions and her “words” that she had no “objections whatsoever” — despite the fact she was gagged.
They allege she smiled when her blindfold was taken off and she saw other people in the room and Mr Charles said “welcome to your gangbang”.
The defence said the woman had given implied “consent in general”, claiming the woman had previously consented to “a million and one” deviant sex acts.
The complainant denies this, saying she consented to the bondage, but claims she did not know other men would be brought in for sex, the court heard.
The complainant had previously indicated to Mr Charles she was interested in group sex, but only if she had met the other participants, the court heard.
The magistrate overseeing the committal said if the complainant was to be believed, it was a “surreptitious” plan, with text messages from Mr Charles to his co-accused saying “don’t ring the doorbell”.
The magistrate said she was “at a loss” to where there was consent given by the woman and consent had to be “explicit” when given.
“Everybody needs to go and re-read the definitions (of consent),” she said.
“She didn’t even know they were there.”
Mr Charles was originally facing eight rape charges, but the court heard last week eight additional sexual offending charges had been laid.
The court heard the parties were in discussions regarding a plea deal in which Mr Charles would plead to two charges and would take on the responsibility of the alleged offending of his co-accused who are charged with sexual offences on a complicity basis.
If the plea deal eventuated, the charges would likely be dropped against his co-accused.
Mr Charles is the “self-employed” Director of YEMECompany Pty Ltd, a finance budgeting and expense tracking app.
He spruiks himself on LinkedIn as: “skilled manager, engineer, sales person and an entrepreneur” with a Masters of Science majoring in manufacturing engineering from Swinburne University.
The trio will return to court later in August as negotiations continue.
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