Stephen Zivkovic’s push to overturn guilty rape verdict dismissed

A Queensland man who raped an unconscious woman he met that night has tried to fight the conviction in the supreme court. DETAILS.

Bowen Court House PICTURE: Monique Preston

A rapist who forced himself on a sleeping woman has tried to blame his victim as unreliable in an attempt to have the conviction quashed.

She had been out drinking and socialising and ended up at Stephen Zivkovic’s house with two others where she fell asleep, a recent court judgment stated.

He was not known to her.

She told a court she had woken gradually the next morning to Zivkovic raping her.

He had pleaded not guilty to rape during a trial in Bowen District Court.

Zivkovic accepted that sex had occurred but claimed the woman’s evidence she did not give consent “was unreliable because of inconsistencies in the evidence, including about (her) drug use”.

But a jury found him guilty. He has appealed the verdict.

Supreme Court Justice James Henry in his decision said her evidence she did not consent “was powerfully supported by the undisputed fact that in the immediate aftermath she complained of what had occurred and was in a distressed condition”.

But Zivkovic has argued the inconsistencies in his victim’s evidence made her unreliable and the guilty verdict unreasonable.

“Assessment of the quality and sufficiency of the evidence before the jury does not expose a doubt which the jury should have experienced,” Justice Henry said.

“To the contrary, it shows it was well open to a jury acting reasonably to have been satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the appellant’s guilt.”

Zivkovic also pushed for the verdict to be set aside arguing the trial judge erred by failing to direct the jury about erroneous reasoning regarding the victim’s “motive to lie or absence of motive to lie” in alleging rape.

Justice Henry in his decision said the evidence “was so innocuous it attracted no request for a special direction” and “it was apparent that the topic of whether the complainant had a motive to lie was not a real issue in the case”.

The appeal was dismissed.

Originally published as Stephen Zivkovic’s push to overturn guilty rape verdict dismissed