Masseur sexually assaulted young policeman while he slept: court

A former London banker has been found guilty of rape after forcing himself on a sleeping cop, exhausted after a series of night shifts.

A masseur who sexually assaulted a young police officer after he fell asleep during a massage at a business in Casuarina has been jailed for four years and nine months.

A MASSEUR who sexually assaulted a young police officer after he fell asleep during a massage at a business in Casuarina has been jailed for four years and nine months.

Bennedictus Tay, 66, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court yesterday to one count of rape and one count of indecent assault against two separate victims in November last year.

The court heard the policeman had gone for an afternoon massage on his first rostered day off after a series of night shifts on November 29 when the first attack happened.

DARWIN fisho threatened boaties with knife, attacked police: court

Crown prosecutor Stephen Geary said Tay asked the officer if he was a policeman and if he had a wife before the young man stripped to his boxer shorts and the massage began.

Exhausted from the lack of sleep from the all nighters at work, Mr Geary said the young man had fallen asleep when Tay woke him and asked him to roll onto his back, which he did before again falling asleep.

He was woken a second time by a “strange sensation” and looked to down to find the former London banker performing a sex act on him.

The man tried to push Tay away and a short time later he stopped what he was doing and continued the massage as if nothing had happened.

Tay then left the room but came back in while his victim was dressing and asked for his phone number and if they could be friends, which the other man refused.

Still in shock and processing the assault, the officer paid and left but “broke down” later that evening and revealed what had happened to his partner, who called police.

EDUCATION department now says ‘multi-tool’ used in brutal schoolyard fight was a knife

Investigators raided the shop on December 4 and the second victim emerged when she went back to complain about being touched inappropriately by Tay during a massage the previous day and found the police already there.

In suspending Tay’s sentence after two years and five months, Chief Justice Michael Grant said the offending “involved a flagrant physical interference with a client in the context of a service relationship”.

“While it didn’t involve a breach of trust in the technical sense of that term, it certainly involved an abuse of both your position as a massage therapist and of the relationship between your former employer and its customers,” he said.

“Members of the public must be able to feel safe when they place themselves in positions of vulnerability as part of physical therapy.

CHEAPER than a cup of coffee*: YOUR NT News subscription delivers much, much more than you expect

“On the other hand, it must be made plain to the community generally — and physical therapists specifically — that interferences of this kind will attract serious criminal consequences.”