Former Labor staffer Kent Rowe’s victim speaks out in court

The woman sexually assaulted by a high-profile former Labor government staffer has revealed the devastating impact of his traumatising actions.

The woman sexually assaulted by high-profile former Labor staffer and family member Kent Rowe has delivered an emotional victim impact statement during her abuser’s sentencing submissions.

Rowe was found guilty by a Supreme Court jury in September of sexual assault of a family member following a six-day trial.

Rowe was the director of parliament caucus liaison and stakeholder engagement until he resigned over the ‘cocaine sex’ scandal in February last year.

He stepped down following the allegations.

There is no suggestion Rowe took cocaine.

In the Supreme Court on Thursday, Rowe’s victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was allowed to read her victim impact statement aloud in an open court after arguments from defence lawyer Jon Tippett KC to close the court.

The woman sexually assaulted by former Labor government staffer and family member Kent Rowe has delivered an emotional victim impact statement in court. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

Mr Tippett said Chief Justice Michael Grant allowing media to be present during the reading of the victim impact statement would be “allowing the social sharks to dine out.”

Crown Prosecutor Tamara Grealy argued against that after the court was closed for the reading of the statement during last month’s trial.

“This is the only opportunity that the victim will have to have her voice heard,” Ms Grealy said.

Justice Grant allowed the reading of the statement, redacted in parts, with the woman struggling through tears as she read from the six-page document.

“I suspect I will spend my life unpacking the impacts of these crimes and the efforts to conceal them.”

Rowe, sitting metres from the victim, looked down while she read her statement.

The woman detailed the sexual assaults she sustained over a period of years and how they left her “scared to fall asleep at night”.

Kent Rowe’s defence lawyer Jon Tippett KC asked Chief Justice Michael Grant to consider a home detention order for his client. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

She told the court she suffered from post traumatic stress disorder because of the assaults.

“Sometimes I punch my head, sometimes I dig my fingernails into myself and sometimes my whole body tenses up,” she said.

“Verbally I will say something under my breath and it’s always one of the following: ‘F***, I f***ing hate myself’ or ‘I want to kill myself’.”

She said in her “darkest moments” she made a slideshow of her life and wrote a eulogy for her own funeral.

She also recounted an incident where she recalled throwing an elbow back to get Rowe off of her.

“My brain isn’t the only place where the memories of what he did to me are stored, they live in my body, too,” she said.

“I can still feel what he did to me … in vivid details and during my most intimate moments it comes back to haunt me.”

She said lying on an operating table after a surgery on one occasion, with “doctors repairing me it reminded me of what he did”.

Crown Prosecutor Tamara Grealy said the prosecution would seek a five-year-plus sentence for Kent Rowe. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

“I knew that something was happening to me down there, all I could think about was what happened to me,” she said.

She said she was left feeling like “an accomplice to my own sexual assaults” after confronting Rowe over the abuse in recent years.

“There isn’t any sentence that will give back what was taken from me or rewrite my past,” she said.

“For these crimes I am serving a life sentence and there is no getting out of that.”

Ms Grealy said the prosecution would seek a five-year-plus sentence for Rowe, while Mr Tippett asked Justice Grant to consider a “very short period of actual imprisonment” and a home detention order as Rowe was “no risk to the community”.

Kent Rowe will be sentenced on November 9 after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a family member. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

“A home detention order is out of range,” Ms Grealy said.

Justice Grant ordered an assessment on Rowe’s suitability for observation.

Rowe was remanded in custody until November 9, when Justice Grant will hand down his sentence.