By Miklos Bolza
A former employee of ex-federal MP Craig Kelly told a court she didn’t speak up about his chief of staff, Frank Zumbo, indecently touching her because she feared retribution.
Continuing her evidence in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday, the young woman said Zumbo, 55, had done this on multiple occasions in his car while giving her a lift home and in Kelly’s Sutherland office.
Frank Zumbo leaving Sydney’s Downing Centre local court last year.Credit: Edwina Pickles
“He would put his hand on my thigh and rub his hand down my thigh and against my vagina. He would rub his hand up and down on the outside of my pants,” she told the court via video link.
“I was very uncomfortable.”
Zumbo is facing 20 charges over conduct alleged by five different women, including sexual touching, indecent assault and common assault between 2014 and 2020.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and argues he tried to create a collegial work environment but no sexual activity ever occurred.
The woman who gave evidence on Tuesday cannot be legally named, but was initially selected by Zumbo and Kelly for work experience and then took up a part-time job at the politician’s office.
She has accused Zumbo of squeezing her breast until it hurt as he kissed and hugged her goodbye after work, and also of kissing her on the lips.
She told the court she did not complain about his conduct, saying she feared retribution if she spoke up.
“There would be consequences for me saying, ‘Please don’t do that’ or ‘I don’t like that’, such as exclusion from chatting to the girls at work, like isolation,” she said.
The prosecution played to the court secretly recorded conversation between Zumbo and four angry female staff members who had discovered fake social media accounts they claimed he had set up to follow people they knew so he could monitor their activities online.
According to the prosecution, the female staffers, who he referred to as the “sisters”, created a secret “vent about Frank chat” on WhatsApp and would send whale emojis to warn each other that he was in a bad mood, the court heard.
The prosecution played to the jury another recorded conversation between the woman and Zumbo in October 2017 and told the court it revealed he had become frustrated after being told she would rather work than eat morning tea with him.
“If you say no to morning tea, you’ll be pulling envelopes at the back all day,” he tells her.
The prosecution told the court that the recorded conversation further revealed that taking her to the office printer room, which was hot without any air-conditioning, Zumbo ordered her to print envelopes for the remainder of the day and started swearing and hitting the photocopier when it broke down.
“It was not an easy or particularly desirable task and was often used if Frank was upset at one of us. We’d be banished to the printer room,” the woman said in court.
The woman told the court that after being told his aggression against the printer scared her, Zumbo then berated her for “dumping him in it”, questioning what would happen if she told her parents and they went to the police.
“You have verballed me, you have made me look bad,” the court heard Zumbo said to the woman on October 16, 2017.
“People will believe you ... because you’re the victim. You’re the poor (young) vulnerable woman.“
In another chat on October 30, 2017, Zumbo pressed the alleged victim into whether she would still be able to go out with him “one on one” if she married because she had to obey her husband under a “warped view of Christianity”.
“If your husband says, ‘Don’t go out with Frank,’ you don’t go out with Frank, so I’m going to get screwed,” the court heard he said in the chat.
The court was told that he repeatedly asked her to clarify with any future husband, who he referred to as a “no hoper piece of shit who’s jealous of me”, that she would continue to see him alone as a friend, mentor and life coach.
At the time, the young woman did not have a boyfriend.
The hearing continues on Wednesday.
AAP
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.