Justice served for Bundaberg woman in horrific Beenleigh group rape

A Qld man who helped a mate rape his girlfriend has failed to convince a court his conviction was not fair. *Distressing.

A man convicted over the violent rape of a woman in a coerced threesome with her boyfriend has learned his fate after a desperate appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn his sentence.

“I think that I’ve been raped”.

These were the sobering words sent in a message from a Bundaberg woman the morning after a horror evening spent at the mercy of her then-boyfriend and one of his male friends.

While the boyfriend pleaded guilty and was sentenced in the District Court, the male friend pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape and one of aggravated sexual assault but was convicted by a jury.

The male friend appealed his conviction, arguing the woman had consented.

According to the recently released Brisbane Supreme Court documents, the woman was forced to relive the excruciating details of the night everything changed.

They state that on June 22, 2021, she was living with her boyfriend in an apartment in Beenleigh and had returned home from work around 5.30pm when she joined her boyfriend and the male friend on the balcony of their home for drinks.

Later in the evening, after her boyfriend went to bed, the male friend and the woman continued to talk and she offered him some MDMA which they had together.

The conversation took a salacious turn when the boyfriend’s friend began making sexual advances towards her.

At one point, he placed his hand on her leg, called her “hot”, and suggested they could be together if she left her boyfriend.

The woman said she rebuffed each advance and eventually went to join her boyfriend in bed, but the boyfriend suggested they have a threesome with his friend.

In a victim impact statement presented to the court, the woman said she did not consent to the acts, and despite her repeated pleas for her boyfriend to listen, both men raped her.

According to the documents the court also heard that following the assault, she was unable to sleep properly, forced to lie next to her rapists.

She first messaged her best friend asking if she was awake in the early hours of the of June 23, 2021; her second text sent between 5:00am to 5:30am on June 23, 2021, displayed the harrowing message “I think that I’ve been raped”.

In September 2024, Judge Tracy Fantin sentenced the boyfriend’s friend to one count of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of rape following the jury’s guilty verdict.

The Supreme Court ruling in July dismissed the appellants claim that consent had been given.

All three judges unanimously determined the jury’s guilty verdicts were not unreasonable.

In handing down the verdict, Justice David Boddice said “I agree that the appeal against conviction and the appeal against sentence should be dismissed”.

The appellant continues to serve a total of six and a half years’ jail.

No parole date has been set.

Originally published as Justice served for Bundaberg woman in horrific Beenleigh group rape