Man ‘played down rape’

A GOLD COAST personal trainer pinned down his exgirlfriend and raped her while she cried hysterically for him to stop.

Three days later the migrant – who placed a listening device in the woman’s car while they had been dating – was caught on her balcony.

The man, who can’t legally be named, faced Southport District Court yesterday, pleaded guilty to rape on February 4, 2018.

Gold Coast police charged the man the same month and then found him trying to leave Australia by plane.

Crown prosecutor Matthew Hynes said the man had been allowed into the woman’s home after telling her he wanted to say his goodbyes.

He then committed a “forced rape in someone’s home in their own bed”.

The woman was “crying hysterically and begging him to stop” as she was penetrated against her will and had her mouth forced open to kiss the offender.

The rapist told his ex “it’s OK, we love each other” as he violated her.

Lying next to his victim after the attack, the man asked if she could love him again.

Mr Hynes said the rape was “traumatic and very scary” for the woman, who was trying to piece her life back together.

She reported the rape to police soon after and the man was charged, but he “downplayed the incident to the extreme”.

Mr Hynes said the man, who met his ex at a gym in 2017, would be deported when he had completed his sentence.

The man bowed his head and looked down, or stared blankly as the case progressed.

Judge Catherine Muir said the man appeared to have “no insight at all into his offending behaviour” and said he only entered a plea days before trial.

Weighing up her sentence, Judge Muir considered, “what happens to the next person who he gets an obsessive problem with?”

Defence barrister Joshua Fenton said “pleas in these sort of matters are unusual” and he told the court it was unlikely the man would reoffend.

Mr Fenton said the man was unable to undertake rehabilitation in prison on remand.

He planned to live with his mother after deportation.

Mr Fenton said there had been “a large number of people being deported from Australia for criminal conduct” recently.

Judge Muir said the man’s forceful offending was “utterly disgraceful” and community protection was important.

She said the rape was inexplicable and the man had a “misconceived view” about love and relationships.

The man was sentenced to five years jail, suspended after 21 months considering 455 days served.

He will stay in prison for six more months.