Actor John Jarratt not guilty of Sydney rape

“No man should go through what I have gone through,” the Wolf Creek star said outside court.

Australian actor John Jarratt arrives at the Downing Centre Local Court this morning. Picture: Peter Rae/AAP

Wolf Creek star John Jarratt says he’s “over the moon” after being found not guilty of raping his housemate more than 40 years ago.

The 66-year-old film veteran pumped his fist above his head as a NSW District Court jury returned its unanimous verdict on Friday afternoon. His wife and adult children burst into tears.

Jarratt this week testified he was seduced into having consensual sex with the woman in 1976 at the Sydney house they shared with his wife, Rosa Miano, and at least one other person.

The woman told the court she was woken about 3am by Jarratt ripping off her bed covers and underwear before he pinned her down, covered her mouth with his hand and raped her.

But the jury returned its verdict at the earliest opportunity.

“Thank you,” Jarratt said as he left the dock to hug Ms Miano and his children.

The actor — whose credits include Wolf Creek, Picnic at Hanging Rock and TV series McLeod’s Daughters — had maintained his innocence from the moment he was charged in August 2018.

“I’m over the moon,” he told reporters outside court.

“I’m just so relieved … no man should have to go through what I went through.” The former housemate, who can’t be named for legal reasons, went to police in late 2017.

She told the court she kept quiet during the attack for fear of it harming her friendship with Ms Miano.

The woman said she didn’t tell authorities until recently because she doubted she’d be believed.

Two friends testified she told them about the alleged rape in the years after 1976.

But Ms Miano, who divorced Jarratt in 1986 and remarried him in 2016, denied the complainant had come to her in the mid-1980s and alleged she’d been raped.

Jarratt’s wife said the woman phoned her in about 1990 “out of the blue” and said Jarratt had cheated with her.

The actor never disputed he had sex with the housemate after arriving home late one night from a meeting with a director.

But he insisted he was walking to the room he shared with his wife when he heard loud whispering from the housemate beckoning him into her room.

She said she’d recognised him from a movie when she first visited for the housemate interview and found him attractive, Jarratt told the court.

“From there, there was, I feel, a seduction. I, unfortunately, participated in that. I willingly had sex with her and she willingly had sex with me. It was consensual.” He said after the encounter there was no further intimacy nor animosity between them.

Seven years later he told his wife during a “truth session” he’d had a one-night stand with the woman.

The first he heard of any rape allegation was when his agent rang him in November 2017 saying there was going to be a newspaper story.

“I didn’t rape her,” Jarratt told the court this week.

Colleagues gave glowing character references, including Wolf Creek co-star Cassandra Magrath, who played a woman tortured and murdered by Jarratt’s character.

Magrath told the jury she trusted him and he never behaved inappropriately.

“He expressed to me his disgust and horror at that particular type of behaviour towards anybody and his grief for the parents of people who had gone through similar things to what we were performing in the film,” she said.

John Jarratt as Mick Taylor in Wolf Creek season two. Picture: Stan.