Guilty verdicts in ‘GoPro’ Sydney gang rape trial

THREE young men have been found guilty of sexually assaulting a teen girl at a Western Sydney party and filming the attack on a GoPro.

Tristan Carlyle-Watson cried after the verdicts were delivered in the GoPro rape trial.

THREE young men have been found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage girl at a Western Sydney party and filming the attack on a GoPro.

Kurt Stevenson, 26, Andrew Waters, 24, and Tristan Carlyle-Watson, 26, were found guilty this morning of guilty of aggravated sexual assault in company by a Downing Centre District Court jury.

The incident happened at a party in St Clair, Western Sydney, in May 2015.

Carlyle-Watson wiped away tears and looked shocked as he listened to the judge discuss sentencing details with lawyers representing him and his two co-accused.

He sunk in his chair and then dropped his head between his knees after the verdicts were read to the court this morning.

Pre-sentence reports were ordered for both him and Waters.

Carlyle-Watson was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault in company but not guilty of sexual intercourse without consent.

Waters and Stevenson were both found guilty of multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault.

The jury had been deliberating for a week.

The trial heard the girl, whose identity has been suppressed, didn’t know she had been sexually assaulted until police contacted her after they viewed footage of the attack on a GoPro. The assault was only discovered when police arrested the owner of the GoPro for vandalism and discovered the horrific footage.

The Crown case was the girl was too intoxicated to have sex — but the defence argued during the six-week trial the sex was consensual and she “actively participated in sex”.

Tristan Carlyle-Watson.

Kurt Stevenson.

In her evidence, the 16-year-old told of being taken to the party where she was the only female and having a spiked beer “poured down my throat”.

She told the court of waking up naked in a room and not knowing where her clothes were.

“I was sick, my belly was sore, I was bleeding everywhere,” she said.

The 16-minute GoPro footage was played to the jury and contained comments allegedly made by the men including “are you ready for the next one” and “just bend her over the bed”.

The court was cleared while the footage was played to the jury.

In her closing statements to the jury, Crown Prosecutor Sharon Harris said Stevenson could be seen having sex with the girl while Waters stood naked watching and “waiting his turn”.

At one point the GoPro panned around the room and captured men watching and laughing.

When he gave evidence during the trial, Stevenson insisted the sex acts with the 16-year-old were consensual.

“[She was] actively participating...She never tried to stop anything, never said no...to stop...I had no doubt it was consensual.”

He became worried when he heard there was a video of what happened because “I didn’t want it put on social media or anything like that”.

The person who recorded it laughed and told him it would be deleted.

Stevenson was overheard in a conversation — covertly recorded by police — saying he was “flipping out right now” after he learned police were investigating. Stevenson said he reacted like that because he was “scared of being accused of something I didn’t do”.

Stevenson, Waters and Carlyle-Watson remain in custody and will face a sentencing hearing in October.

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