Dance star’s nervous wait over sexual touching conviction

A former Dancing With The Stars is appealing his convictions for sexually touching a woman during a drunken night in a dance studio.

A former Dancing With the Stars contestant has accepted he climbed into bed naked with a woman during a drunken night at a Sydney dance studio but denies sexually touching her, a court has been told.

Trenton Shipley, 50, is fighting to have his convictions overturned after he was last year found guilty of three counts of sexually touching a woman inside an Annandale unit and dance studio in 2021.

He was acquitted of a fourth count following a four-day hearing in January last year.

Magistrate Julia Virgo last year sentenced Mr Shipley, best known for finishing runner-up on season 3 of Dancing with the Stars in 2005, to a maximum of a year in prison.

However, he was immediately freed on bail while he launched an appeal, which has been heard before Judge Graham Turnbull in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court this week.

Mr Shipley will on Thursday afternoon learn whether his convictions will be quashed or his appeal is dismissed and he is taken away to serve his prison sentence.

Trenton Shipley appealed after he was convicted of three counts of sexual touching. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Jeremy Piper.

The court was told the allegations related to a series of incidents while Mr Shipley was dancing with and teaching the woman – who cannot be identified for legal reasons – at the Annandale dance studio, which belonged to a mutual friend.

Both were staying in separate beds inside an apartment, which was attached to the studio, that evening.

The most serious of the charges relate to allegations that early in the morning Mr Shipley climbed into the woman’s bed while naked and touched her vagina and breasts over her clothes.

Barrister Greg Stanton, acting for Mr Shipley, on Wednesday, argued that Judge Turnbull could not be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Shipley committed the three counts of sexual touching he was convicted of.

He said that while he accepted Mr Shipley entered the room naked and got into the woman’s bed, he argued there was not sufficient time to commit the acts.

“She is not a witness of credibility,” Mr Stanton said of the woman.

Shipley during his appearance on season 3 of Dancing With The Stars. Picture: Supplied.

The court was told that after Mr Shipley climbed into the woman’s bed, she sent a friend a Snapchat message that referenced the incident.

The woman made no mention of the Snapchat message, or the photographs she took, however it was revealed when another witness gave evidence about it at trial, the court was told.

Judge Turnbull noted that he found it “a little extraordinary” that she did not make mention of contemporaneous photos she took of him that she then sent to a friend.

Given that Snapchat messages automatically delete, there was no evidence of what was in the pictures or the attached captions.

The Crown prosecution argued the issue was not fatal to her evidence.

Mr Stanton earlier told the court that he relied on what he described as a series of inconsistencies in the woman’s evidence.

The court was that Mr Shipley was also convicted of kissing and groping the woman during a dance as well as touching her thigh in the kitchen.

The court was told that the group was drinking that night, including alcoholic watermelon slushies, and Mr Shipley had become progressively more drunk.

After the earlier incidents, the court was told the woman had further interactions with Mr Shipley in the dance studio in which she asked for further “tips and tricks”.

The Crown prosecution argued that the woman was seeking to “appease” Mr Shipley.

But Mr Stanton argued that was “unsupported” by evidence.

Judge Turnbull will hand down his judgment on the appeal on Friday afternoon.

Originally published as Dance star’s nervous wait over sexual touching conviction