Former TV producer acquitted of rape

Thomas Joseph Nicol, 33, has pleaded not responsible to raping a lady he knew at his Bondi residence in January 2021.

The girl stated she wakened within the evening to seek out Nicol kneeling on prime of her earlier than he raped her and he or she was dumbfounded.

However Nicol stated the couple had consensual intercourse after they went to his home to seek out her misplaced telephone.

After about two hours of deliberation, a jury from the Sydney District Court docket on Monday reached a unanimous verdict of not responsible.

Nicol’s household embraced him as he left the pier.

The girl instructed the jury final week she could not keep in mind getting in an Uber with Nicol to his place and waking up when he knelt down and touched her on the mattress.

She stated she froze in the course of the assault, fell asleep after which caught an Uber in tears round 7 a.m., telling the curious Uber driver she felt she had been raped .

She repeated the accusations to her housemates, after which to the police.

Prosecutor Emilija Beljic instructed the jury in her closing remarks: “This was not simply an unlucky sexual encounter, she clearly linked this as a breach of belief.”

Protection lawyer Phillip Boulten SC stated the alleged sufferer was all the time confused about what had occurred, locking himself within the perception of being raped.

“(They) engaged in sexual exercise which, maybe for each of them, was utterly unlucky, it was messy each bodily and personally, and he or she probably constructed her belief after this occasion as a result of she feels completely sorry for what occurred,” Boulten stated in her closing speech.

The jury heard from Nicol’s former housemates, who had come to understand him.

“He is loyal and reliable… I am no more comfy with a person than with Tom,” stated Hannah Hanfy, a former housemate.

One other housemate, Alice Flanagan, instructed the court docket. “For on a regular basis I’ve identified him, Tom has been a reliable individual. I feel he is empathetic. I feel he reads different folks’s feelings and tries to assist them by means of life.”

The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes on Thursday afternoon earlier than persevering with at about 10 a.m. Monday. The sentence was pronounced at about 10:50 a.m.

Nicol was beforehand employed on 9 Community’s At present present as a producer supervisor. 9 is the writer of this web site.