Jury to consider rape

A JURY is expected to begin its deliberations on Friday morning in the matter of a Cairns soccer player accused of gang-raping a woman he shared a taxi with alongside the driver.

Jacob Lahai, 27, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape relating to a 32-yearold woman in May 2016.

During the trial in the Cairns District Court, which began on Tuesday, the proseclothes, cution alleged that the woman climbed into a taxi outside Gilligan’s after a night out before Mr Lahai also got in.

The court was told Mr Lahai knew the driver, Bobby Johnson, 31, who allegedly drove the taxi to the depot before the men dragged the woman into his private car and took her to Parramatta Park, where they both raped her.

Mr Johnson’s DNA was later found on the woman’s but Mr Lahai’s was not and he told police during a recorded interview he was dropped home in the taxi, despite GPS data showing otherwise.

Defence barrister James Sheridan pointed the finger solely at Mr Johnson during his closing submission and said it was “fundamentally implausible” that none of Mr Lahai’s DNA was found if he had been involved.

“The person who raped (the woman) that night was

Bobby Johnson,” Mr Sheridan said. “The last memory she has is Johnson and Lahai being in the car, that’s why she’s confused about this.

“She simply lashed out because of what this man Johnson did to her.”

But Crown prosecutor Stephanie Williams argued Mr Lahai told “deliberate untruths” during his police interview, including initially saying he had never ridden in Mr Johnson’s cab despite it being confirmed on CCTV.

“There’s no innocent explanation for those lies,” Ms Williams said.

The court heard the woman had described one of the men as being fat and the other, alleged to be Mr Lahai, as “bony”.

“There’s no doubt in her mind … that it was the taxi driver and the bony man who raped her,” Ms Williams said.

“For everything that happened to her, when she was raped by those two men, she did not consent.”