Man raped sleeping Dutch au pair at his Gladstone home in 2018

“I said you could sleep in my bed as long as you don’t do anything and then I woke up this morning and he was having sex with me.”

The man was sentenced to prison.

A Gladstone man raped a Dutch au pair while she slept, after a night of drinking.

The man, 45, pleaded not guilty to one count of rape in the Gladstone District Court last week.

A court heard the Dutch woman, 24 at the time, was hired by the man and his wife in early 2018 to assist with caring for their three sons.

The man cannot be identified for legal reasons.

She had been in Australia three months when she was employed by the family, and settled in well to her new role.

On the evening of March 10, the man, his wife and the au pair were sitting on the veranda of their West Gladstone home drinking wine.

The wife became intoxicated and went to bed before midnight, but both the man and the au pair continued their drinking session into the early hours of March 11.

Having discovered his wife had locked the door of their bedroom, the man took up an offer from the au pair to sleep on her side of her double bed for the night.

The exact time of what happened next was unclear, however, the au pair was woken in the early hours of March 11 to the man on top of her and the shorts she went to bed in removed.

A court heard the man had inserted his penis into the au pair’s vagina and was engaging in sexual intercourse with her while she was face down on the bed.

The man then turned the au pair over and continued to have sex with her before she told him to stop and leave.

The man was immediately apologetic, saying to the au pair “Oh, oh, oh sorry” and put his clothes back on when instructed before being locked out of the room.

Around 3.10am on March 11 the au pair contacted a friend from her native Netherlands regarding the ordeal, then called a friend she had made on her travels to southeast Queensland.

He instructed her to file an official police complaint and police arrived to conduct preliminary investigations around 5am that day.

During the call to police, which was aired to the court and jury residing over the matter, the au pair’s voice was shaky as she told the operator what had occurred.

“I feel really unsafe, I woke up and the father was having sex with me, I’m an au pair and I really feel unsafe,” she was heard telling the operator.

“I said you could sleep in my bed as long as you don’t do anything and then I woke up this morning and he was having sex with me.”

During what the prosecutor quoined a ‘pretext call’ to the defendant later that day, the man apologised but claimed he had no memory of the incident.

The au pair left the house with police that morning and after further investigation the man was taken into police custody and charged with one count of rape.

After a three-day trial, a jury found the man guilty of one count of rape and he was convicted and sentenced to six years imprisonment. He will be eligible for parole in 2024.

Originally published as Man raped sleeping Dutch au pair at his Gladstone home in 2018