A young woman felt “fucked up” and “traumatised” after finishing working with a senior staff member of former MP Craig Kelly, only feeling safe once she had moved away from Sydney, a court has heard.
Francesco “Frank” Zumbo, 55, is facing 20 charges, including sexual touching and indecent assault, related to accusations made by five women between 2014 and 2020.
On Thursday, his trial heard evidence from a woman who claimed that Zumbo created fake Instagram accounts to follow her – and other women working in Kelly’s electorate office – after she had refused his request to follow her account.
Zumbo has pleaded not guilty to all charges, with his defence lawyers arguing he tried to create a collegial atmosphere and none of the alleged sexual contact occurred.
On Thursday, Downing Centre local court continued to hear covert recordings of discussions between Zumbo and the third alleged victim, made when he would drive her to and from their office each day. Zumbo met the woman when she was his student at the University of New South Wales, and he subsequently invited to volunteer in Kelly’s office before offering her paid employment.
Prosecution lawyers asked the woman about WhatsApp group messages she had sent with other female employees at Kelly’s office, in particular a message she sent after finishing working at the office in which she said: “I genuinely feel fucked up/traumatised from the whole thing”.
Explaining what she meant to the court, she said “it was an awful” number of years working in the office, and that she continued to feel “incredibly paranoid and stressed” despite having left the office.
She claimed Zumbo had set up fake Instagram accounts to follow her and other young women working in the office, and that she was told that he would complain to staff still working with him that she had stopped contacting him since she left.
“I didn’t feel safe until I’d left Sydney, out of the state,” she said.
At one point the woman was asked why the platform the women would talk on – both when she worked there and afterwards – changed from a Facebook messenger group, to a WhatsApp group, to an iMessage group.
She said this was because Zumbo learned how to tell when one of them was active on a platform, and would then try to contact them. She said iMessage did not show this information.
The messages tendered as evidence included discussions showing the woman wanted to submit a bullying application to the Fair Work Ombudsman, and that she also sought legal advice. She said she found it tough to explain her experiences to people outside the office, before ultimately going to police to provide a statement.
“It was surreal that we were having legitimate four hour arguments about Instagram with someone twice our age,” she said.
In one message, the young woman told other “sisters” – women in the office – “[I] need to sanitise my face, so much saliva” after Zumbo kissed her on the cheek.
The woman has previously told the court Zumbo touched her legs while she was in a car with him, which became such a concern that she would take a jacket to work each day, even in summer, just to cover her legs when sitting in his passenger seat.
She has also claimed that she felt coerced into allowing Zumbo to hug her, with audio recordings played before the court capturing him quiz her for several hours on multiple occasions that she told him she did not wish to be physically affectionate with him.
Recordings played also included Zumbo telling her that no man she could marry would ever love her more than he did, despite her telling him she had no romantic interest in him.
Defence lawyers began cross examining the woman – who is the third of five witnesses – on Thursday afternoon, noting that the timeline of events she had provided in her police statement appeared at odds with date stamps on the audio recordings she had produced as evidence.
She was also asked why she told Zumbo he could hug her and hold her hand in interactions captured in the audio recordings. She said she had felt “coerced” and that “there’s a difference between saying yes … and having to be pressured into it”.
“I didn’t feel safe enough to articulate that.”
She gave similar answers when asked why she told Zumbo at one point he could kiss her on the cheek, and why she invited him over to dinner. “I was tired of arguing,” she said.
When cross examining the young woman, defence lawyers put it to the woman that Zumbo was a “lonely man” who came to rely on her as a “confidant” because he thought she was “loyal”, which she disagreed with.
They put it to the woman that she was capable of lodging a complaint or standing up to Zumbo if she didn’t want him to touch her, and they suggested he did not sexually touch her and that she levelled the allegations against him because she felt mistreated. She denied this version.
Asked why she did not complain to Kelly about Zumbo, the woman claimed that Kelly was aware that there were occasions when Zumbo made her feel uncomfortable. “He [Kelly] saw me crying a number of times,” the woman said. However, she said did not raise her concerns with Kelly, saying it would be out of ordinary for someone of her role in the office to approach Kelly and talk to him alone, and that if Zumbo saw this he would inquire.
The trial continues.
