Lawyers for a man accused of raping a fellow university student have accused his alleged victim of lodging a complaint to protect her reputation as an advocate against sexual assault.
Alex Matters, 21, is on trial in the ACT Supreme Court for allegedly sexually assaulting the woman in May 2021, soon after they began a so-called "friends with benefits" relationship.
The alleged victim approached police after her friends alerted her to media reports, which said Mr Matters had been arrested and charged with raping another woman.
That charge was ultimately dropped.
However, Mr Matters is now facing a jury trial over an alleged incident in which his fellow student said he would not stop sex when she asked him to, allegedly leaving her sore and bleeding for several days.
In a text message, the alleged victim told Mr Matters:
"What did you do to me, you were too rough. I am literally waddling around."
A key issue that the trial has considered has been that the pair's relationship continued after this incident.
On the night after the alleged assault, the woman said she was drunk with friends when she sent two recorded Facebook Messenger messages to Mr Matters, which were played to the court.
"F*** me, Daddy," she said in one, with noise from other people in the background. In the other, she said: "I want you to f*** me so hard."
Mr Matters texted back:
Mr Matters: Are you doing this in front of other people
Woman: Yep
Mr Matters: [Shocked face emoji] Gosh you are a bit cheeky
Woman: A little bit pinky baby
Mr Matters's lawyer Steven Whybrow suggested to the woman that the messages showed she had lied about the sexual assault.
"[You] did that because the sex you had the night before was consensual," Mr Whybrow said.
But the woman disagreed.
"Because I was so drunk and I was not feeling so great about myself," she responded.
Mr Whybrow raised the fact that the pair had gone for a walk months later, in September, when she had asked having about no-strings-attached sex that night.
She also agreed that, three days later, she reported Mr Matters to police.
Defence says woman was unsure she had been raped
The court heard the woman decided to complain formally after her friends informed her of Mr Matters's initial arrest.
She told one friend: "I'm not OK, I slept with him multiple times … I don't know if I got raped."
She also discussed the alleged assault with her godmother.
"I think I may have been raped, too, I do not know," she said.
Mr Whybrow suggested to her she had told her friends she thought she needed to go to the police.
"You were stressing out not because you [had been raped], it was because this was going to look really bad for you," he said.
"I disagree with that," the woman responded.
Mr Whybrow said: "I suggest to you, you had consensual sex with Alex Matters … and would have again if he'd agreed three days earlier."
The woman also rejected that suggestion.
Prosecutor urges jury to consider alleged victim's pain
In her summing-up, prosecutor Soraya Saikal-Skea reminded the jury that the alleged victim's conversation with her godmother included a question about the context.
"Did you have this feeling before this came up?" the woman's godmother had asked.
"Yes I did," the woman replied.
Ms Saikal-Skea urged the jury to consider the women's evidence about the aftermath of the alleged assault, including the pain she said she had suffered, her bleeding and her repeated showers.
"She gave evidence she had showered in the following days because she felt disgusting," the prosecutor said.
She also pointed to text messages between the pair days later, when the woman complained of the pain, and Mr Matters asked her about the next night.
"The accused appears to be [more] occupied with his own performance than that he left her in pain," Ms Saikal-Skea said.
Mr Whybrow wound up his case on Thursday and the jury retired. They will return after Easter to deliver their verdict.
