Court reverses rape verdict

A GOLD Coast electrician who was jailed for the rape of a woman who he met on dating site Tinder has been acquitted by the Court of Appeal.

In a two-to-one decision, the Court of Appeal on Friday ordered Leigh Murray Brown’s rape conviction be set aside.

In August last year, a jury found Mr Brown guilty of rape and Judge David Kent sentenced him to five years in jail, to be suspended after he had served two years.

Mr Brown, 44, had maintained throughout his four-day trial in the Southport District Court that the rape was consensual and a part of a “rape role-play” scenario.

He was acquitted of a second count of rape at his trial.

Mr Brown and the woman had met through the dating site Tinder in 2017. They had communicated through texts and phone calls, with explicit messages, sexual innuendo and phone sex.

Mr Brown told the woman he liked rough sex and rape role-play and he liked to talk dirty during sex.

During the trial, the court heard that Mr Brown and the woman agreed to meet in a Gold Coast pub and they then went back to the woman’s apartment to have sex.

Justice Kent said the case had a “curious aspect” because the rape started with consensual sex which turned violent and the woman then withdrew her consent.

In the Court of Appeal, Justice David Boddice said the complainant accepted that there was a discussion about rape role-play, that she did not indicate she was unwilling to undertake that role play and that Mr Brown raised with her the use of a safe word.

Justice Boddice said she also accepted that on each occasion Mr Brown sought to undertake a different sexual act that he asked her whether she recalled the safe word.

He said the woman gave evidence at the trial that she had told Mr Brown more than once that she could not remember the safe word.

Justice Boddice said that was inconsistent with her detailed statement to police, given within days of the events.

He said that, at best, she asserted she could not remember the safe word, which was very different to an assertion that she told him, prior to an alleged anal rape, that she could not remember the safe word.

Justice Boddice said that crucial difference in evidence was of such significance as to give rise to a discrepancy that raised the real risk an innocent man had been convicted.

Justice Boddice said the jury ought to have entertained a reasonable doubt as to Mr Brown’s guilt of the rape.

Justice Frances Williams also found the jury verdict was unreasonable and the appeal should be allowed.

Justice Philip Morrison said he would dismiss the appeal, finding two appeal grounds failed and a third lacked merit.

He said Mr Brown commenced his “attack” in such a sexually explosive manner that one could safely conclude the woman forgot the safe word.