Jaydon Ward found not guilty of rape of a fellow ADF member at Lavarack Barracks

A jury has found a former member of the ADF didn’t rape a woman at his Lavarack Barracks unit. Find out what was said in court throughout the week.

The trial has begun for Jaydon Ward who allegedly raped a fellow ADF member at his Lavarack Barracks room four years ago

A former 3RAR soldier has been found not guilty of raping a woman multiple times in his Lavarack Barracks room after they met on a dating app.

Jaydon Ward was discharged on all five counts of rape on day five of his trial.

The jury of nine women and three men took three and a half hours to decide on the verdict.

Mr Ward reunited with his family and friends at the back of the courtroom as they sobbed with relief.

DAY FOUR: Alleged 3RAR rapist gives evidence

The 3RAR soldier accused of raping a woman at Lavarack Barracks took the stand to give his own evidence on Thursday, stating that he believed the sex was consensual despite them never having any prior discussions about her intentions.

On the fourth day of the trial where it is alleged Jaydon Ward raped a fellow defence force member in his Lavarack Barracks unit, Mr Ward told the court during his own evidence he never heard the woman tell him to stop.

Mr Ward has denied the charge and pleaded not guilty.

During the crown’s cross examination, Mr Ward agreed that he had matched with the woman on tinder and messaged her with the intention of having sex with her, but never explicitly asked her if that was what she wanted as well.

Mr Ward told the court after the first time they had sex, the woman went to the bathroom and then joined him outside on his balcony where they spooned on the couch and drank from the same vodka cruiser bottle.

Jaydon Ward is currently on trial for raping a fellow ADF member at his Lavarack Barracks room in 2021 while he was a soldier in the Australian Army.

On day three of the trial the court heard from a forensic scientist who carried out testing for the investigation, and she said they found both Mr Ward’s and the women’s DNA on the vodka cruiser bottle which was sent to them.

Mr Ward said he believed the woman was consenting and denied she tried to push him off of her.

He also said when she slammed his door on her way out of the unit, he chose not to follow her as he assumed that meant she didn’t want to speak to him.

During his closing argument Defence barrister David Jones, instructed by Kalo Criminal Law, said the alleged victim’s version of events was the “product of heightened embarrassment and shame from being used by a man.”

Mr Jones said after being accused of raping the woman, he didn’t delete messages he had sent to the woman on his phone or destroy evidence and consistently complied with police and forensic nurses after being arrested and charged.

He also argued that because the rooms on base are so close together, if the woman had yelled out for Mr Ward to stop, a neighbour would have heard her.

“As Mr Ward said, you can hear the kettle boil next door, what would be the chances of a woman vocalising her objections to the level that (she) said had occurred,” Mr Jones said.

“Is it the stage where you’ve got an army battalion who can hear ‘stop, get off me’, ‘stop, I’m hurt’ but they all just put their hands over their ears?”

The former 3RAR soldier said he believed she was consenting despite her never explicitly saying it.

Mr Jones told the court that if the woman had undergone the “endured, prolonged sexual offending” that she alleges, she wouldn’t have slammed the door on her way out of the Mr Wards room and drawn attention to herself as she left.

During her closing arguments the Crown Prosecutor, Ashley Gaden, told the jury that while there may be some minor inconsistencies with the woman’s evidence, the baseline of her narrative had maintained its truth.

“Sometimes the colour of the acts that she alleged were not as vivid as she might have hoped but despite the pressures associated with giving evidence in a courtroom, she told you what happened to her because it did happen to her,” Ms Gaden said.

Ms Gaden said the pair had met for the first time the day of the alleged rape, and the woman had done nothing to indicate that she wanted to have sex with Mr Ward.

“Expressing an attraction to someone is not obtaining their consent, internal contemplation of the possibility of intimacy is not consent, the sending of arguably flirtatious messages is not consent,” she said.

“He made no attempts to ascertain consent, he was with a stranger, and he made no attempts to check in with her afterwards given that she walked out abruptly and slammed the door.”

“The evidence shows she was not consenting and there is no mistake of fact about it.”

Day Three: ‘I legit just got raped’

A jury has heard the woman who was allegedly raped by a former soldier, sent a message to her friends saying “I legit just got raped” before they found her walking by herself through Lavarack Barracks shaking and sobbing.

On day three of the trial of alleged rapist Jaydon Ward, three friends of the woman recounted how they found her walking through base at night visibly distressed.

One man, who described himself as a “friend of a friend” of the alleged victim told the court him and two friends, who also knew the woman, left to get KFC after they saw her get in the car with a man and drive off.

“Approximately 10 to 15 minutes after we left for KFC, I received a message from (her) stating that she felt uncomfortable and asked if I could come pick her up,” he said.

He said he messaged her back and the two other men tried to call her, but there was no reply.

“Later on approximately half an hour later I received a message from her on Facebook Messenger stating ‘c--t, I legit just got raped.’”

A man told the court that he received a Facebook message from the alleged victim. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nicholas Eagar

The jury heard the men were able to get in contact with her after she had left Mr Ward’s room and she told them she was walking by herself through Lavarack Barracks.

The driver of the car who was a close friend to the woman, told the court when they found her she was sobbing and seemed “shaken”.

“(She seemed) closed off, didn’t really want to talk about what had happened and she just wanted to escape where she was,” he said.

He said they drove her back to where she was living and when he was in the room with her she began to speak about the alleged rape while “crying, curled up in a ball on the bed.”

“She started breaking down crying,” he said.

“She had stated that she was raped and that (Mr Ward) had forced himself upon her…and that she had said stop multiple times.

“She stated that someone had walked through the room at one point and she had asked for help and the person had just walked through the room.”

Jaydon Ward, a former soldier in the Australian Army, has been charged with raping a fellow ADF member.

He said later that same night, himself and the two other men returned to Mr Ward’s room, without the woman, where during a heated confrontation about the alleged incident Mr Ward said “I f—-d her twice but it was consensual…I’m not a f—ing rapist”.

The jury heard that during that confrontation, Mr Ward’s friend grabbed him and pulled him inside of his room and closed the door before the woman’s friends took her to the Lavarack Barrack’s Health Centre.

A forensic scientist who carried out testing in the investigation said Mr Ward’s DNA was found on the woman’s body and her DNA was found under his fingernails and on his body as well.

Body worn camera footage taken by a detective was played to the jury where the woman was seen telling police she had told Mr Ward she would wait outside his room but he insisted she come inside.

The woman said to police she was messaging her friends before Mr Ward grabbed her phone and said “don’t worry about them” before the alleged rape began.

“He just started pinning me down and everything just got real serious,” she said in the video.

She said after he raped her for the first time, she went into his bathroom and after coming back out “he picked me up and threw me on the bed”.

The court heard this caused significant pain to the woman as she had suffered injuries for some time after seriously hurting her back and hips during her initial training at Kapooka.

“I was telling him that whole time that I don’t feel comfortable and he just kept going,” she said in the video.

“His mate walked in and I said ‘stop, get off me’ like really loud so his mate would hear me and he just looked at us and just kept walking, he didn’t do anything about it.”

After the detectives escorted the women to the forensic medical unit at TUH, they went to Lavarack Barracks, arrested Mr Ward and declared his room a crime scene.

The woman’s mother also gave evidence on Wednesday about the conversations she had with her daughter during the night of the alleged rape.

One message she received from her daughter read “I’m not alright mum”.

Lavarack Health Centre registered nurse, a TUH forensic nurse, a military police officer and the lead detective for the police investigation also took to the witness stand, which brought the crowns case to a close.

The trail will resume on Thursday.

Day Two: Trial continues for alleged 3RAR rapist

A fellow soldier had a six pack of beers and a speaker in his hands as he walked into Jaydon Ward’s room without knocking the night the alleged rape took place, a court has heard.

During day two of the trial where it is alleged Mr Ward raped a fellow ADF member in his Lavarack Barracks room, the jury heard from two witnesses who were both living on base at the same time.

One soldier who worked alongside Mr Ward at the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR) at the time, said on the night of the alleged rape he walked into Mr Wards room without knocking to find him in bed with the woman.

“I walked in, took two steps, the room was dark and then I saw (Mr Ward) and (the woman) laying in bed and asked if I was interrupting something,” he said.

The soldier said Mr Ward told him he wasn’t interrupting so he continued walking out onto the balcony.

He told the court he looked through the balcony window back into the room and saw that the woman had sat upright on the bed while Mr Ward walked around the room completely naked.

He said Mr Ward joined him on the balcony shortly after, before he heard the door slam shut as the woman left.

Jaydon Ward is currently on trial for raping a fellow ADF member at his Lavarack Barracks room in 2021 while he was a soldier in the Australian Army.

The jury was told later that same night people who were unknown to him and Mr Ward showed up to the 3RAR rooms and asked Mr Ward “why did you rape (her)?” to which Mr Ward replied immediately “I didn’t”.

The woman’s neighbour appeared by video link to the court on Tuesday and said on the afternoon of the alleged rape he saw her leave with a man in a car.

“I made a joke as she was leaving, I believe my exact words were ‘don’t forget to wear a franga,’” he said.

Later that night he, and two others, helped drive the woman to Lavarack Barracks Health Centre, the court heard.

“She was very upset, and I believe she’d been crying,” he said.

The court was closed for most of the second day as the complaint was cross examined.

The trial is set to resume on Wednesday.

Day One: Trial begins for soldier charged with raping fellow ADF member

A jury has heard that four years ago a Townsville soldier allegedly raped a fellow Australian Defence Force member multiple times in his Lavarack Barracks room.

In Townsville District Court on Monday, Jaydon Ward pleaded not guilty to five counts of rape and one count of aggravated sexual assault.

Crown prosecutor Ashley Gaden told a jury of nine women and three men on the afternoon of August 21, 2021 Mr Ward had organised to meet with a woman for the first time after they matched on a dating app.

The court heard while driving back to his house with a few of his friends, Mr Ward picked her up from where she lived and drove her to his room on Lavarack Barracks.

Ms Gaden said after the car was parked and his friends left, Mr Ward handed her some items and asked if she could help bring them up to his room.

“Once inside his bedroom … she realised there wasn’t really anywhere to sit so she sat on the end of his bed and he went to the bathroom,” she said.

“There had been no conversations of substance between the two up until that point, but soon after, he walked out of that bathroom … and he was completely naked which was a surprise to (her)”

It is alleged that Ward, who was in the Army, raped a fellow soldier.

The jury was told Mr Ward walked towards the woman and forced her backwards onto the bed and raped her.

“Despite her repeated pleas for him to stop, despite telling him that he was hurting her,” Ms Gaden said.

He later raped her again before a friend of Mr Ward’s entered the room, which caused him to stop and allowed time for the woman to redress and leave, Ms Gaden said.

“After leaving the bedroom she contacted those she trusted most and disclosed to them what had happened to her,” she said.

“She then went on to the Lavarack Health Centre … and then to the Townsville University Hospital.”

The crown said four days later the woman made a formal complaint to police.

The trial, which is expected to run until Thursday, will feature multiple witnesses including the complainant, other defence members who served alongside Mr Ward, a military police officer, health experts and a detective who investigated the matter.

Defence barrister David Jones KC is representing Mr Ward and did not provide an opening statement on day one of the trial.

The court was closed to the public after Ms Gaden’s opening statement while the complainant provided her evidence to the jury.

Originally published as Jaydon Ward found not guilty of rape of a fellow ADF member at Lavarack Barracks