By Clare Sibthorpe
Warning: graphic content
A young woman has broken down in court while describing her alleged rape by a NSW detective inside a police station while he was investigating her sexual assault complaint.
Glen Coleman, 57, is accused of raping the then 19-year-old inside the north-west Sydney station in early 2022, as well as groping her in a police car and abusing his position of public office.
Former NSW Police Sex Crimes Squad detective Glen Coleman leaves Penrith Court on the first day of his rape trial.Credit: James Brickwood
Coleman is fighting the allegations at a Penrith Court district trial, and on Wednesday, his defence team argued there were several discrepancies in the alleged victim’s version of events and suggested her memory was poor and that she was “making it up” as she went along.
The court heard the sex crimes detective met his accuser in February 2022 when she attended the police station to complain about her cousin, who’d threatened to post naked photos of her online. When Coleman said he couldn’t do anything about that complaint, she asked whether he could investigate an alleged sexual assault by her ex-partner.
On Wednesday, the woman described meeting Coleman in a police station interview room on May 5 to finalise the complaint about her ex-partner.
By this point, Coleman had already allegedly groped her and grabbed her on two occasions in his police car and repeatedly offered her money for sex after discovering she worked in a strip club.
The woman told Crown Prosecutor Kate Nightingale she wanted to finish the statement even after the alleged sexual touching because she didn’t want to traumatise herself “all over again for nothing”.
In the interview room, she signed what she believed to be her statement about her ex-boyfriend before Coleman allegedly put a $50 and a $20 note on the table and said: “It’s yours; give me a head job.”
She said that when she refused, Coleman said, “Fine, I’ll just keep it”, but she responded, “No, wait,” because she was scared Coleman wouldn’t help her with the complaint about her ex-boyfriend.
Coleman’s trial is expected to last up to three weeks.Credit: Rhett Wyman
She asked if she could leave after doing the sexual act “for a minute,” and he said yes, so she put her phone timer on for one minute and performed the act.
After that, she said Coleman asked to have sex “for one minute”, and she agreed because she “at least wanted to have some control”.
“He could see that I didn’t want to, and he didn’t care,” she said.
“I’m just looking at him horrified like I just couldn’t believe it,” she said, saying she put her timer on for another minute and had sex with him so she could leave.
“He started moaning, and I left myself there until the timer went off,” she told the court while crying.
She said she took the $70 on the table before leaving because she was “pissed”.
During cross-examination late on Wednesday, defence barrister Joel Brook suggested the woman was either unable to remember or was making up what happened during the three times she met Coleman at the police station because her evidence did not match her police statement.
“I suggest your memory isn’t particularly good as you sit here today,” he said, to which the woman said: “My memory is fine”.
“Are you just making it up as you go along when you talk about that March 2, 2022 meeting?” Brooke asked after pointing out there were conversations mentioned in the police statement that were not included in her court evidence. The woman denied this.
Brook told the court Coleman kept the police meetings professional until the woman brought up having an interview at a strip club and a conversation about escorting. The woman said she told Coleman about the strip club because Coleman asked what she was doing on the weekend.
“You agree that auditions at strip clubs had nothing to do with anything Mr Coleman was investigating for you,” Brook asked, to which the woman agreed.
Brook asked why she invited him to watch her dance at a strip club before any of the alleged sexual touching took place. She said he had already said inappropriate things to her, and inviting him to the strip club was a way to keep the situation under control because the visitors couldn’t touch the workers.
The woman’s cross-examination will continue Thursday.
Coleman was arrested on May 20, 2022, and stood down from the force in September of that year.
He has pleaded not guilty to three counts of sexual intercourse without consent, six counts of sexual touching without consent and one count of abusing his position of public office to procure the woman for his own sexual gratification.
Brook told the court his client denies “he ever sexually touched or had sexual intercourse with the complainant without her free or wilful consent”.
The trial before Judge Robert Montgomery continues.