A defence barrister has pointed to a lack of human DNA in a trial of a housemate accused of committing an act of bestiality on a cat named Dutch.
The jury trial of the accused man, who is in his 20s and has not been named for legal reasons, continued on Tuesday, August 17.
He has pleaded not guilty to one charge of committing an act of bestiality on a male tabby cat.
It was alleged that on February 14, 2025, the housemate and the cat's owner were watching football when they left the home to get food.
The two men ended up going to a nearby pub for a few hours until last drinks. While the cat owner was waiting for a Domino's pizza order, the housemate went home.
He is accused of committing the bestiality act, suffering scratches to his hands and arms, in the time it took for the owner to return.
Giving evidence to the ACT Supreme Court jury on Monday, the cat's owner described arriving home to see the accused man at the kitchen sink, cleaning his hand which appeared to have been cut.
"That's when [my housemate] then told me that Dutch had attacked him," the owner said.
The owner told the court he walked into the living room to find blood on the ground and walls before locating Dutch in his bedroom "covered in blood and down, quivering".
"When I went to go near him he started hissing like crazy at me ... like I've never seen before," he said.
The owner described Dutch's usual temperament as "playful, outgoing, confident" and "a bit of a rascal".
An emergency veterinarian who examined Dutch that night gave evidence that the cat had suffered injuries to the rectum which were not "natural".
The vet opined the animal had suffered "trauma of some sort" caused by "insertion of an object".
The veterinarian said he "can't think of anything that would cause" the injuries other than penetration.
During closing submissions on Tuesday, defence barrister Edward Chen argued that "one good test is worth a thousand expert opinions".
He pointed to evidence that no human DNA had been found.
"This point in itself outweighs all the other evidence," he told the jury.
Mr Chen outlined a hypothesis for the jury which he said was consistent with his client's innocence.
The barrister suggested "something traumatic" could have happened to Dutch while the men were out drinking.
"It might be [the accused man] arrived [home] in a manner that startles an already heightened cat," Mr Chen said.
"There might have been some interaction which causes Dutch to then attack ... because it is already frightened and then a scuffle ensues."
Mr Chen theorised that the indoor cat's trauma may be "causally linked" to the men possibly not locking the door when they left the home.
"You might think it is pretty unlikely that a stranger would do this to Dutch," the barrister said.
He argued it was "more unlikely" for the culprit to be the housemate because the cat's owner was due home imminently, and "going forward [the accused] would have to live with Dutch and his owner".
Crown prosecutor Sam McLaughlin, in his closing address, argued the "only reasonable thing that fits with all the evidence is that the accused did what was alleged".
"You might think those scratches are wholly consistent with a person holding a cat who is agitated and attempting to defend itself," Mr McLaughlin said.
"This was not some momentary attack by a cat. Dutch was attempting to escape and was being held."
The prosecutor argued Dutch was an indoor-only cat, the front door was routinely closed and the only person home before the owner returned was the accused housemate.
Mr McLaughlin told the jury that the housemate's comments and demeanor when police arrived "sit very uncomfortably with the suggestion that Dutch had simply attacked him".
The trial before Chief Justice Lucy McCallum continues.
