Rapist and his chilling history
PREDATORY date- rapist Mitchell Cameron Peggie was acquitted of a brazen daylight sexual assault of a teenager in August last year, just four days before he raped a 21-year-old in a Brisbane churchyard.
The jury that convicted him of rape yesterday was not told about the previous acquittal where he was accused of grabbing his 17-year-old date by her wrists, biting her ear and molesting her while she was pinned against her car in an Ormeau railway station carpark.
At his trial for that incident a year ago, the Surfers Paradise waiter, 26, convinced the jury he was honestly mistaken and believed the encounter was consensual. The groping was captured on the railway station’s CCTV and was seen by people walking past.
According to documents filed in the Supreme Court last year when the then-25-yearold unsuccessfully applied for bail on charges of raping a 21year-old, the police officer in charge of the investigation said he believed Peggie’s acquittal for the carpark assault “emboldened him” to rape the student outside St Stephen’s Cathedral.
In sentencing Peggie to up to seven years behind bars for rape and sexual assault yesterday, District Court Judge Deborah Richards said he had “pressed” his “sexual inten- tions” on his victim on their first date.
Just hours before the date the woman told Peggie via text that she did not want to have sex.
Peggie persisted “regardless of consent”. The attack was “humiliating” and “distressing” because it occurred in full view of a passer-by outside the cathedral, Judge Richards said. The final sexual assault occurred in the victim’s car as she drove Peggie home to Greenslopes.
Senior Constable David Van Buuren told the Supreme Court police had received several complaints about Peggie.
Peggie’s ex-girlfriend had told police he tried to blackmail her into taking part in degrading sex acts by threatening to release explicit photos – akin to “revenge porn”.
An anonymous caller to Crime Stoppers had labelled Peggie a “deviant” and “crazy mental” for allegedly handcuffing and whipping young Asian women before having sex with them.