By Sarah McPhee
Warning: Graphic content
Inside room 1118 of Sydney’s The Star Grand Hotel, one night in 2022, a woman was heard “begging for mercy”.
The listener, a male guest staying in the adjacent room, woke his female companion, who put her ear to the connecting door. She heard a young woman pleading “no, don’t”, then fast and heavy footsteps, thudding noises and the “most blood-curdling scream”.
The woman alleged she was sexually assaulted at The Star Grand Hotel in Sydney.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
It sounded like the woman was in agony and needing help, the female guest told Downing Centre District Court this month. Then there was another scream, fading towards the lifts, she said.
CCTV footage captured the injured woman arriving in the black-and-white tiled foyer and approaching a security guard in a high-vis vest, who radioed for police. “Her face was vandalised,” the guard said in his evidence.
The woman, holding her hands to her swollen face, reported Joel Nathan Fitzpatrick Burtt had assaulted and raped her inside the hotel room.
“He was strangling me to the point I thought I was going to die,” the complainant said, captured on police bodycam.
Joel Nathan Fitzpatrick Burtt outside court on Tuesday before he was found guilty of rape and detained.Credit: Kate Geraghty
“I thought he was going to kill me … he had sex with me when I was screaming and crying.”
Having left the room without her phone, she said: “Someone call my dad, please.”
Her father gave evidence about arriving at the hospital that night to find his daughter “barely recognisable”.
“Her face was bashed to a pulp,” he said.
Fitzpatrick Burtt, 22, admitted he punched the woman that night but pleaded not guilty to 11 charges, including one alternative count, related to three separate incidents.
A jury on Tuesday unanimously found him guilty of six charges related to the night at the hotel: aggravated sexual assault inflicting actual bodily harm, choking and four counts of sexual intercourse without consent. He was found not guilty of two assault and two choking charges related to previous alleged incidents.
A ‘traumatic and terrifying experience’
Fitzpatrick Burtt and the woman had been on a Darling Harbour cruise that afternoon with a group before drinks at a pub. They danced and kissed on the boat, and were later seen on CCTV holding hands.
But that did not mean the woman consented to anything else, prosecutor Melanie O’Connell told the jury.
The complainant said she had needed to collect items from the hotel for another party, and went back with a male acquaintance, who had the room key. She did not know why Fitzpatrick Burtt joined them.
After the other man left, she said Fitzpatrick Burtt pinned her to the ground, asked to have sex and she said “no”.
Fitzpatrick Burtt (left) will be sentenced in October. Credit: Kate Geraghty
The complainant said Fitzpatrick Burtt looked “evil”, repeatedly punched her in the head and headbutted her. She said she asked him to get ice, and he ordered some via room service.
The woman said Fitzpatrick Burtt then raped her, and she “kept telling him to stop”.
“Her lack of consent would have been obvious to him,” the prosecutor said.
The woman said he performed further sexual acts without her consent and she had been too scared to yell out for help when the ice arrived.
She said she asked if she could call their female acquaintance who had booked the room, and he told her she could if she performed oral sex, which she did because she “didn’t want any retaliation”.
When she called and asked that woman to come to the room, she said Fitzpatrick Burtt kicked her in the head and threw the ice bucket over her. She said she left when the other woman opened the door.
The prosecutor said the complainant’s evidence had “all the hallmarks of an honest and accurate account of the most traumatic and terrifying experience”.
Accused admitted assault, denied rape
Fitzpatrick Burtt, from Byron Bay, claimed that while inside the room, the woman asked for a “cuddle” and patted the bed.
He said he asked if they could have sex, and she replied “not yet”. He said she “initiated kissing” and they had consensual sex.
Fitzpatrick Burtt admitted he had hit the woman four times in the head, but argued it was in retaliation. He said he called her a “jealous slut” over her attitude on the cruise, during which a hen’s group had taken a shot off his chest, and claimed the complainant hit him in the head first.
Fitzpatrick Burtt denied some sexual acts occurred, and insisted those that did were consensual. He disagreed with the prosecutor’s suggestion that his version was a “complete fabrication”.
Chief Judge Sarah Huggett convicted Fitzpatrick Burtt of the six charges, and he was taken into custody. He will face a sentence hearing in October.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732).
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