NRL footballer Jack de Belin started to take sex by force before his friend Callan Sinclair decided to join in the rape of a 19-year-old woman, the men’s retrial has heard.
De Belin, 30, and Sinclair, 23, have pleaded not guilty to five charges of aggravated sexual assault in an apartment after meeting the teenager on a Wollongong dancefloor in December 2018.
“Mr de Belin was, having got the complainant back to the unit, determined to have sex with her... and was not going to take no for an answer,” crown prosecutor David Scully told the jury on Wednesday.
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Both men had been hoping for a consensual threesome but there had been a “fundamental disconnect” between their wants and hers.
“Mr de Belin started to take sex by force and Mr Sinclair saw that and decided to join in,” Mr Scully said.
The Sydney jury, empanelled on Wednesday, has been told it will hear recordings of evidence given in the first trial, which did not conclude.
The woman met the men on the dancefloor of Wollongong bar Mr Crown, having already known Sinclair from a sports team years earlier.
CCTV footage from the night in question would show “a lot of dancing”, de Belin and the woman embracing on the dancefloor and her kissing Sinclair in the bar.
“The kiss was not, on the crown case, a passionate one - it was a fun kiss and they laughed about it afterwards,” Mr Scully said.
When leaving the bar, the woman had been under the impression the trio were headed to the nearby Fever Nightclub.
But the St George Illawarra forward led them to a taxi rank, confusing the woman, who was told by the footballer “it would be faster” and told by Sinclair to not be a “wuss”.
“She trusted the accused,” Mr Scully said.
She was instead taken to the unit, which she entered to use the bathroom.
While there, de Belin undid her top, pushed her onto the bed and said “show me your rack”, the Crown alleges.
When she said “no” and “stop” to that and a further request from Sinclair, the footballer forced himself on her.
“The complainant felt numb inside,” Mr Scully said.
The Crown anticipates the main issue in the trial will be whether the woman had consented.
De Belin’s lawyer said there was a “fundamental issue of credibility” in the evidence of crown witnesses including the complainant.
Jurors would have to ask themselves if her actions afterwards were of the manner they would expect of someone “viciously raped”, David Campbell SC said.
“Each of (the accused men) have forcefully, emphatically, repeatedly and consistently - most importantly - denied there was anything untoward about what happened - that is everything that took place in those premises on that night was consensual,” he said.
In the first trial, Sinclair spoke of being a young man from a loving family, his barrister said.
“You’ll hear Callan say ... he’s never been in trouble before and he’s a man of good character,” barrister Sharyn Hall said on Wednesday.
The trial is expected to finish within three weeks but the jury has been asked to remain available until May 7.
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