An Illawarra woman who claims she was raped by her housemate’s friend after a night out has described the moment she learned the identity of her alleged attacker inside the darkened room.
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The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told a NSW District Court jury on Monday she woke in the early hours of December 29, 2016 to discover a male lying on top of her, moving his penis in and out of her vagina.
“I was extremely confused as to what was happening,” she said, telling the court she initially thought it was a friend whom she’d seen earlier in the night and had been messaging before falling asleep.
She said in a dazed state she called out that friend’s name, prompting her alleged rapist to say ‘who the f—k is [he]?’
The woman said she instantly recognised the voice as that of Jay Clarke, a friend of her housemate’s whom she had met for the first time earlier that night.
The court heard the woman had spent the evening at a nearby pub with her housemate, Clarke and Clarke’s cousin, however she retired to bed early as she had to work the next morning.
She claims she yelled at Clarke to get off her and get out of her room, allegedly prompting Clarke to respond “just let me f—king finish I’m close to coming.”
She said she was able to push Clarke off her and pull the doona between them. She said Clarke got up and pulled his pants back on before moving to the doorway, where he chastised her for having a messy room, then left.
The woman told jurors she was too scared to leave her bedroom but sent her housemate a series of text messages saying “I don’t want him here, he just came into my room naked….he half raped me, I want him gone!!!”
(When asked what she meant by “half raped”, the woman explained Clarke had not ejaculated inside her).
Meantime, the woman said Clarke came back into her room twice more that morning, prompting her to scream at him to leave each time.
She spent the day at a friend’s house before reporting the matter to police that night.
A subsequent sexual assault kit completed at Wollongong Hospital revealed the presence of DNA closely matching Clarke’s at the entrance to the woman’s vagina.
Clarke was arrested five days later and charged with rape.
However, when questioned by police, Clarke told them the woman came out of her bedroom and grabbed him by the waist before trying to touch him on the penis and kiss him but he rejected her.
The woman will be cross-examined by Clarke’s barrister, Peter Kondich, on Tuesday.
Meantime, Mr Kondich confirmed at the start of the trial that Clarke would take the stand to give evidence about his own version of what happened that night.