Theodoros Tsalkos, 62, to get retrial for alleged 1987 St Kilda rapes

An alleged rapist who was jailed last year for the sexual assault of two girls in 1987 has forced a retrial of one of the state’s most infamous cold cases.

Cold case alleged rapist Theodoros Tsalkos will be released from prison on bail on Thursday. Picture: Josie Hayden

An alleged rapist who was thrown in jail for the sexual assault of two teenage girls nearly 40 years ago will walk free on bail, forcing a retrial of one of the state’s biggest cold cases.

Theodoros Tsalkos, 62, was sentenced to eight years and two months behind bars — non parole — last year after a jury found him guilty of raping and kidnapping two teenage sex workers, aged 15 and 16, while pretending to be a policeman on May 7, 1987.

Mr Tsalkos, aged 25 at the time, picked up the two girls — who cannot be named because of their age — in St Kilda and drove them to a dark laneway near an Elwood canal.

He then allegedly raped one of his victims in the car, while threatening to “stab or shoot” the pair if they did not comply with his sick demands.

Mr Tsalkos then drove to an isolated toilet block in Balaclava where he allegedly raped the other girl and forced them to perform sex acts on each other.

But Mr Tsalkos will have the chance to clear his name after the Victorian Court of Appeals set aside his convictions and ordered a retrial.

He was released on bail from prison on Thursday.

It comes as Mr Tsalkos successfully argued a miscarriage of justice during the trial when prosecutors told the jury they could use evidence given by one of the alleged victim’s mothers about how she observed her daughter in a distressed state in hospital as “independent evidence” of the alleged incident.

Theodoros Tsalkos has appealed his convictions and will get a retrial.

At time defence lawyers argued the alleged victim could have also been in distress due to her lying to her mother and the police about being a sex worker.

Appeal judges Karin Emerton, Stephen McLeish and Christopher Boyce granted leave to appeal on this ground that the alleged victim’s distress “should not have been left to the jury as evidence that was independently supportive” of the alleged incident.

“There were plainly a number of reasons for (the victim) to be distressed when she found herself in hospital that morning,” the judges wrote in their judgement.

“There was at least one other substantial cause for the distress observed by (her) mother: (The victim’s) concern that her mother would find out she had been engaging in sex work. Allied to this was the imperative to lie to her mother and her decision to lie to the police and perjure herself.

“In these circumstances, (the victim’s) distress is not rationally capable of being characterised as attributable to the sexual offending that she described. Although the events were quite recent, a lot had occurred since to put (her) under significant stress which could itself have caused the distress, irrespective of the alleged offending.

“Moreover, (the alleged victims) had the presence of mind, sitting in the bath together, to work out jointly what they would and would not tell the police. The decision to lie, which was exposed very quickly, must have put significant pressure on them both.”

The case sat dormant for 25 years, until forensic experts began analysing hundreds of frozen DNA samples linked to cold cases with advanced technology in 2012.

Swabs taken from the girls at the time were matched to Mr Tsalkos, who was a person of interest, and he was arrested and charged in March 2020.

He faced a seven-day trial in 2022, having pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape, two counts of kidnapping and four counts of gross indecency with a person under the age of 16.

One of the victims has since died of a rare illness.

During the Court of Appeals judgement on Thursday, Mr Tsalkos asked if his bail conditions could be modified to allow him to live with his father.

“Is there any chance I can change the address to live with my father? He’s 88,” he asked the court.

Mr Tsalkos will make his next County Court appearance in February next year.