The trial for former Arnold Bloch Leibler manager accused of raping a then-colleague continues this week, the County Court hearing that Dale Cooney “was on a mission” to have sex with the woman when he left a bar and went to her home.
But according to a report by The Age, a lawyer for Cooney said that was far-fetched theory for a man of good character, who was non-violent towards women, to rape her in her home.
“As if he's going to write that script,” defence counsel Peter Morrissey, SC, told a County Court jury in his closing address yesterday.
Cooney, 47, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape after the pair had what his lawyer said was consensual intercourse, back in 2001. He told the court that there was kissing and cuddling and the woman made space for him on her bed when he came out of the toilet.
Chief crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert QC, told the jury there was not romantic attraction between Cooney and the woman, saying she once told him he was a pig.
Silbert said that the accused was not ready to go home when he left The Geebung Polo Club and went to the woman’s home in his closing address yesterday.
“The suggestion is he was on a mission once he left the Geebung Polo Club that he was simply going to drop around and have sex with her,” he said.
He told the jury that the woman had been certain she did not give consent, but didn’t contact police of fear she would lose her job. She contacted police in 2014, The Age reported.
Morrissey said that the woman was advised to contact police by a partner at the firm and by a friend, and that she wrongly believed she was told not contact police. He said she had been evasive, manipulative and had lied in her allegations.
The woman had initially told a doctor that Cooney had thrown her against a wall and on the bed, but later told the jury that it hadn’t happened. Morrissey also said he had been inconsistent on what she claimed was in her home.
Morrissey said Cooney, who was separated from his partner at the time, had left his job at the firm because his partner did not want him working with the woman. He had always maintained that the sex was consensual, but told the firm it had been regrettable.
The trial continues.
