Former CFMEU Qld boss David Hanna pleads not guilty to rape

A woman allegedly raped by former union boss David Hanna sent a message to a friend saying “save me”, a court has heard.

David Hanna arrives at the District Court in Brisbane this morning. Picture: Dave Hunt/AAP

Former Queensland CFMEU boss David Hanna allegedly filmed an apparently unconscious woman while he performed sexual acts on her after meeting her in a bar in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley in 2017.

At the opening today of what is expected to be a five-day trial in Brisbane’s District Court, the former vice-president of the Labor Party in Queensland pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape and a charge of filming the woman’s genitals in breach of her privacy.

Crown Prosecutor Michael Lehane told the jury that witness testimony would show that Hanna, 53, a former national president of the construction union, took advantage of his position and the woman’s vulnerability.

“In essence, the crown case is that the accused, knowing (the victim’s) cognitive capacity to give consent to sexual activity and her physical capacity to resist unwanted sexual activity was effectively taken away by her gross intoxication, took advantage of his position and her vulnerability by performing non-consensual acts upon her or sexual acts where she lacked the cognitive capacity to consent,” Mr Lehane said.

He said witnesses and CCTV footage would detail the woman appeared heavily intoxicated when she met Hanna at the rooftop nightclub shortly after midnight on March 4, 2017.

“By that time, she’d drunk a lot of alcohol,” Mr Lehane told the court.

“She was asked to leave venue due to her intoxicated state.”

Within ten minutes of meeting her, Hanna accompanied the woman to the front of the venue and into a taxi, before she realised her handbag had been left inside.

He said he would look for the bag, which he did not find, but only returned to the front of the venue 50 minutes later after being approached by security.

Mr Lehane said witnesses would describe how the woman appeared to be “dazed and confused”, “affected by alcohol”, “off balance” and “stumbling in her speech”.

Hanna, meanwhile, did not appear intoxicated, he said.

The pair left in a taxi together about 2am, travelling to her apartment complex in the northern Brisbane suburb of Taigum.

“He (the taxi driver) described the accused as being all over her,” Mr Lehane said, describing the woman’s recollections of the trip as “scant”.

“She doesn’t remember getting in the cab but remembers chatting to the man as they travelled.”

When they arrived at the complex, Hanna kicked the door to the woman’s apartment open.

She remembered telling Hanna “she didn’t want to have sex with him”.

Mr Lehane said that once they were inside, the woman sent a Facebook message to a friend saying, ‘save me’.

She also tried to call an ex-boyfriend and sent him a text message that said: ‘please help me’.

“She called to her housemate, who she knew wasn’t there and tried to make the man (Hanna) think someone else was there,” Mr Lehane said.

“She walked into her room.

“The next thing she can remember is the accused was on top of her and she was on her back.

“She remembers saying several times ‘I don’t want to’.

“She then said, ‘if you’re going to do it, at least put something on’.”

When the woman later awoke, she was alone, with bruising on her inner thighs.

She contacted friends and the police and was medically examined by a doctor.

Mr Lehane said the woman was unable to identify the man who had accompanied her home, but police investigations led to Mr Hanna’s arrest on March 6, 2017.

A search of Hanna’s phone recovered deleted photos and videos of the woman, “seemingly unconscious, eyes shut, mouth open”, Mr Lehane said.

The trial continues.