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A high-profile man and a Geelong marketing executive allegedly coaxed an intoxicated woman into her car before driving off and raping her, a court has heard.
A friend of the woman called police soon after he saw her drive off with Patrick Sinnott and the other well-known man, telling the Geelong Magistrates’ Court he feared she would be assaulted. The woman was allegedly attacked by the pair after she vanished from outside a strip club in 2023.
A friend called police soon after the alleged victim sped off with the accused, a court has heard. Credit: Getty Images
But other witnesses claim they were told in the weeks after the night out that the alleged victim had said she lied about the attack.
The details of the incident, which occurred in the early hours of February 5, 2023, were outlined by three witnesses during a preliminary hearing on Thursday.
A wide-ranging suppression order prevents publication of the name and any identifying details of one of the accused.
Sinnott and the high-profile man are facing several charges of sexual assault, including rape. The pair, who both appeared in court, have denied all charges against them.
Both men deny the sex assault claims.Credit: Louie Douvis
One witness, a friend of the alleged victim, described the moment of panic when he saw the woman drive off with the pair after a night out at Alley Cats.
At around 4am, the alleged victim and another woman struck up a conversation with Sinnott and the other man outside the venue, the friend said.
The male friend told the court the women were flirting with the two men, claiming he saw them flash their breasts at the pair.
The men then propositioned the women for sex, which they denied, the friend said.
“The two defendants were asking [the two women] well, you know, ‘did you want to hook up or did you want sex?’ … I remember [the alleged victim] saying ‘no, I’m good’. They were kind of pestering her a little bit,” the friend said.
The friend heard the alleged victim later getting angry at the accused, allegedly telling the men to “f--k off”.
He told the court he tried to intervene, informing the men she was drunk and not interested. But the two accused persisted and told him to mind his own business.
The friend said he took one of the accused around the corner in an attempt to get him away from the women but claims he was hit in the back of the head and then stomped on several times.
“I got up and I told security that [the victim] was going to get raped … if they didn’t stop the guys. When I came back around the corner [the alleged victim] was already in the car,” the friend told police in a statement.
The alleged victim was behind the wheel when she sped off with the two men driving “erratically”, the court heard. The friend called police in the minutes after and tried calling the woman’s phone but got no answer.
The friend, joined by three others they met that night, drove to her nearby home in the hopes she would have driven there, he said. They called police again after discovering she was not home.
He told the court a call to the woman’s phone was eventually answered but by one of the accused, and he heard his friend in the background call out saying she was in trouble.
After some time, the woman eventually called the friend and said she had been attacked by the men in a car park.
She dropped the pair at a house before driving home, the court heard.
Police arrived at about 6am and took statements from witnesses at the woman’s property.
Two witnesses from the club that night both told the court that weeks later the woman’s friend informed them that she had lied about the incident.
Sinnott’s lawyer, Moya O’Brien, accused the alleged victim’s friend of lying about key details in his police statement, including the physical assault on him.
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