A rape trial opened at Victoria's County Court on Wednesday, with a high-profile Melbourne man — who cannot be named for legal reasons — pleading not guilty to two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault against a former employee The Guardian. The alleged offending is said to have occurred in March 2023, at the accused's home ABC News. The complainant had worked for the accused as his personal assistant for several months the previous year.

Prosecutor Matthew Fisher, opening the Crown case, told the jury that on the night in question the complainant had been drinking alcohol and taking cocaine with the accused at a friend's house while listening to music and watching football. According to Fisher's account, the accused later tried to kiss the woman and sexually assaulted her; she pushed his hands away and told him "I don't want this." He is alleged to have replied "you're so sexy," "I can't sleep, help me," and "I need this." Fisher told the court the woman then felt the man rape her twice.

The Crown's opening detailed what followed immediately after the alleged assaults: the woman turned to face the accused and punched him in the face, breaking his nose by her account — he is alleged to have said "you've broken my nose" — before she got out of bed and told him "you're a fucking rapist." She then moved to another room, began taking notes on her phone, and texted her mother. Despite her own reluctance to involve police, her mother called them. An officer phoned the complainant at about 3am on 24 March 2023, and police arrived at the property shortly afterward. A 35-minute exchange between the woman and attending police was captured on body-worn camera and is expected to be played for the jury during the trial.

Fisher also flagged evidence the woman is expected to give about an earlier pattern of conduct, telling the court she would testify that the accused had previously made sexual advances toward her and that she had warned him: "If I let you do this, if I let you fuck me, you will never respect me as your employee."

Defence barrister Dermot Dann KC used his opening to attack the complainant's credibility directly, telling the court she had "massive issues" in relation to credibility and reliability — pointing specifically to a prior allegation she made against police that was later found to be false. Dann argued this history explains her initial reluctance to contact authorities after the alleged rapes, framing it not as evidence of trauma but as a pattern consistent with fabrication. He also told the jury the complainant raised the question of "recompense" with her mother by text message while still inside the accused's house that night, suggesting she was already contemplating a negotiated resolution rather than a criminal complaint.

The competing openings lay out the trial's central evidentiary fault line with unusual clarity. The Crown's case rests heavily on contemporaneous conduct — the immediate accusation, the note-taking, the body-cam footage — as corroboration of the complainant's account. The defence, by contrast, is building around prior-conduct impeachment and the timing of the "recompense" texts, a strategy that will likely turn on how the jury weighs delay, ambivalence and negotiation talk against physical corroboration like the broken nose. Victorian sexual-assault trials increasingly hinge on this kind of body-worn-camera evidence, which juries tend to treat as more probative than testimony recalled months or years later.

The case is also notable for what remains withheld from public record. Suppression orders preventing identification of the accused are common in Victorian matters involving prominent defendants, particularly where publication could prejudice a fair trial or where parallel civil or reputational proceedings are in train. Such orders draw periodic criticism from open-justice advocates, but courts have consistently upheld them where the risk of prejudice is deemed to outweigh the public interest in naming a defendant ahead of verdict.

Reporting on the trial's opening day was consistent across outlets. ABC News confirmed the location of the alleged attack at the accused's home, while the Sydney Morning Herald had flagged the trial's commencement a day earlier. The trial continues, with the complainant's testimony and cross-examination — including scrutiny of the police body-cam footage and the disputed "recompense" texts — expected to shape the remainder of proceedings.