By Sarah McPhee
Warning: Graphic content
Wallabies star Kurtley Beale called his manager minutes after a woman confronted him with sexual assault allegations and said he had “messed up” and thought she was consenting, a court has heard.
Beale, 35, is accused of groping the woman on the buttock at the Beach Road Hotel on December 17, 2022, forcing her to perform oral sex in a cubicle and grabbing her hips. He has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of sexual touching.
Kurtley Beale arrives at court on Tuesday with his wife, Maddi Beale.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
The court has previously heard a lengthy call between Beale and the woman from 5.22pm on January 19, 2023, recorded by police, during which she alleged he had “grabbed [her] arse twice” and asked Beale whether he remembered her saying “No, I don’t want to” to oral sex.
At Beale’s trial in Downing Centre District Court on Tuesday, prosecutors played a second secret recording of Beale, this time calling his then-player manager and agent Isaac Moses at 6.18pm that same day.
“Hey mate, have you got a bit of time?” Beale asked in the call.
“Yeah, like, umm, I messed up. So, I was out at the pub, like before Chrissy, like a bird has rang me out of the blue saying that, she’s like a little bit upset.”
Sports agent Isaac Moses leaves court after giving evidence in support of Kurtley Beale at his sexual assault trial.Credit: Ben Symons
Beale said he had “misread the whole situation, the scenario”.
“She performed oral, oral sex on me. But like it wasn’t really for any, literally like two seconds, wasn’t even that,” he said. “She’s like, ‘I didn’t really consent to that action’ blah blah blah.
“I’m like, f---, OK. Just trying to recollect everything.”
Asked by Moses, “Well, did it happen?” Beale said “yeah” and he remembered being in a cubicle.
He said he had asked the woman on the call whether she was recording, and she had said “no”.
Moses said: “She might’ve even been to the police.”
“Yeah. Right,” Beale replied.
Moses added: “Kurtley, I’ll bet you she did consent otherwise that wouldn’t have happened. True, yes?”
“That’s what I thought,” Beale replied.
The manager then said his phone was about to go dead, and he would call Beale back on a different phone.
Moses agreed with Beale’s barrister Margaret Cunneen, SC, on Tuesday that his knowledge and experience with other sportsmen who have had criminal complaints against them had “something to do” with how he handled the call.
“What was going through my mind was I just didn’t want Kurtley to be misunderstood or misconstrued in what he said,” Moses said.
Giving character evidence, he said he had known Beale since he was 18 and found him “very honest”. Moses said Beale had been worried about the complainant’s welfare, and that the charges had a “huge effect” on his rugby union career.
Beale’s mother-in-law Julie Blomberg described Beale as a good, kind and caring man.
Asked by Cunneen “about the fact of Mr Beale having been in a men’s toilet with a woman not his wife”, Blomberg said it was “hurtful to start” and Beale had made a mistake.
“But I don’t think for a minute that Kurtley would assault someone,” she said. “We believed him when he said that it was consensual. Kurtley and [wife] Maddi have sorted out the issue of hurt.”
Cunneen previously told the jury the court was not a moral tribunal.
Earlier, two pub staff gave evidence about what they saw and heard while inside the men’s bathroom at the same time as Beale and the complainant.
The woman previously told the court she had been “busting” to use the bathroom. She claimed Beale repeatedly propositioned her for sex before he barged into the cubicle and locked the door. The woman said she told Beale “I don’t want to” and “no”, and he said, “Shh, keep your voice down”.
The defence argues the sexual activity in the cubicle was consensual and “instigated” by the woman.
Hotel chef Amar Adhikari said he saw a girl’s sandals in a cubicle and heard a sound “like chewing something with an open mouth”.
In his statement, Adhikari said it was the “first time I ever see the girls in men’s bathroom”, and that the sound was “like the girl suck the d--- of the boy”.
Former Bondi Beach Road Hotel chef Amar Adhikari leaves court after giving evidence at Beale’s trial.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
“I think they had already closed the downstairs band, so it was quiet in there, so I can hear,” he said. “The whole time, I can hear the same sound from the cubicle.”
“You say that went on for a minute or so the whole time you were there?” Cunneen asked.
“Yeah,” Adhikari said.
Nirmal Tamang, who was a kitchenhand in the pub, said he saw a pair of shoes, “maybe sneakers”, facing towards the toilet seat, and a pair of “female heels” facing towards the toilet door.
“I didn’t hear any noises the whole time,” Tamang said. “We were there for probably two minutes only.”
Under cross-examination, the two men said they had not heard anyone in distress, saying “no” or “stop” or any female voice.
The court heard police did not speak to Adhikari and Timang until February 2023, after Beale was arrested.
In response to Cunneen’s suggestion that she “arrested and charged first and investigated later”, the officer-in-charge of the investigation, Senior Constable Christina Tesoriero, said: “That’s incorrect.”
The court has heard the woman visited her fiance’s family the next day, when she disclosed the allegations, and they took her to the police station and hospital.
Forensic toxicologist Dr Shuang Fu said results from the woman’s urine sample indicated she had “used a bit more cocaine than average”, as it was detected in her system more than 24 hours later.
The complainant previously said she had two “small lines” of cocaine at her friend’s house before going to the pub.
The parties are due to deliver closing addresses on Wednesday.
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