Rapist’s appeal thrown out

A CRAYFISHERMAN jailed for raping a woman in a Glenorchy public toilet has lost his appeal.

Marcus Paul Wilson, 44, of Surges Bay, was imprisoned for five years on two counts of rape arising from an attack at Tolosa Park in July 2014, which was described as a degrading and humiliating ordeal for the vulnerable victim.

Wilson appealed against his conviction, arguing Justice Stephen Estcourt misdirected the jury on a matter of law.

During the trial, the jury heard the victim was walking with a friend when a man they had never met pulled up and offered them a lift. The woman said when the man drove the pair to their destination and her friend got out, he threatened her not to get out of the vehicle.

Wilson then drove her to a nearby toilet block and raped her twice, threatening to “snap her neck” if she did not comply with his sordid demands.

In sentencing Wilson to three years non-parole, Justice Estcourt said there were no mitigating circumstances and the humiliating nature of the rapes put them in the most serious category.

On appeal, Wilson took issue with comments by Justice Estcourt about the victim not getting an opportunity to address what the defence said were her motivations to lie about the rape.

Justice Escourt told the jury these claims might be regarded as “very significantly diminished because [the victim] wasn’t given an opportunity to comment on it”.

Wilson’s appeal lawyers argued the comments were misleading and could have an adverse effect on his client.

Yesterday in Tasmania’s Court of Criminal Appeal, Acting Justice David Porter said the comments were “not misleading” in the context of Justice Estcourt’s summing up of the case and “cannot be said to have given rise to a miscarriage of justice”.