Man allegedly filmed rape of sleeping woman, court told

A HUMPTY Doo woman only found out she’d been raped by her mother’s ex-boyfriend while she was asleep when she found a video of the assault on her laptop months later, a court has heard

A woman only found out she’d been raped by her mother’s ex-boyfriend while she was asleep when she found a video of the assault on her laptop months later, a court has heard.

A HUMPTY Doo woman only found out she’d been raped by her mother’s ex-boyfriend while she was asleep when she found a video of the assault on her laptop months later, a court has heard.

The 40-year-old man, who cannot be named, is facing trial in the Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to two counts of rape following the incident in 2017.

Crown prosecutor Collette Dixon told the court the woman was living in a detached building on her mother’s rural block when she passed out after a night of drinking on June 21.

The next morning, the man allegedly snuck into her bedroom and set her laptop camera to record before assaulting her twice.

Ms Dixon said the woman didn’t realise what had happened until she found the footage some months later and confronted the man, who told her “that was supposed to be deleted”.

She said when interviewed by police, the man told officers he had had sex with the woman “plenty of times” before and although she was “a ragdoll” during the incident “he didn’t think he needed consent to do what he did”.

“He stated that: ‘I didn’t have consent, I’d always wake her up like that in the morning’,” she said.

“He stated that if (the woman) didn’t want him to do it why didn’t she tell him to stop?”

But Ms Dixon said the woman denied ever having had sex with the man before.

Defence barrister Tom Berkley said jurors would have to decide whether the woman was passed out or “awake but just not responding”

“Sometimes appearances can be deceiving, we know that from life, we know that there are many ways in which we conduct ourselves, both in public and in the privacy of the bedroom,” he said.

• SPECIAL limited time offer: NT News subscription for just $5 per month for the first 3 months

“Is it wrong to touch (your) sexual partner and wake them up with erotic touching or, if they are awake, to gain their acknowledgment of it and perhaps their consent?”

“How far can the state intrude into the bedroom and come down with the full force of the law and say ‘Gee, he touched her and he can’t be sure she was awake, therefore he raped her’?”

The trial continues on Tuesday.