Our 21-year-old client and university student studying a bachelors of commerce was charged with sexual intercourse without consent.
The charge and arrest process shook our client and turned his life upside down. Our client and his family made contact with our Sydney office and was given advice by our senior lawyer Ahmad Faraj.
The alleged victim met our client at a house party hosted at our client’s home on New Years eve 2019. Our client and her had never met prior to this night. On the night, and after the count down, they both entered our client’s brother’s bedroom where they had sex.
After having, the alleged victim continued to stay over our client’s home and spend the night sleeping there before leaving the next morning.
That same morning, our client’s sister approached the alleged victim and demanded that she apologise for disrespecting the family by having sex in their home. This caused the alleged victim to be embarrassed and distressed given they come from a close knit community.
The alleged victim then began receiving text messages from people who were made aware of her having sex with our client. At this point, the alleged victim messaged our client’s sister to advise that she was taken advantage of by our client.
There was a Facebook message where she admittedly said that she did not want people to think of her as a ‘slut’ and that she did not regret the sex with our client, and that she was concerned for her reputation.
It was 10 months or so after the sex that the alleged victim then decided to report to police that she was raped, after she saw our client in public again.
At the Parramatta District Court trial, the alleged victim was thoroughly cross examined pointing our inconsistencies in her allegations, including the photos that she took after the sex of her smiling and hugging our client, the social media posts leading up to her making the allegations, the fact she decided to sleep over the house after the sex and more.
In the result, our client was found ‘not guilty’ by the jury, putting an end to a very difficult time in our client’s life, and finally allowing him to move on with his life. This could not have been possible were it not for the thorough preparation and compassion shown by our Ahmad Faraj.