A Fairy Meadow man has been found guilty of violently raping a woman after he slipped unnoticed into her taxi and followed her home.
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Vaughan Rogers, 41, in his nine-day Wollongong District Court trial, maintained he had consensual sex with the 56-year-old woman in her Tarrawanna home after he saw her at Towradgi Beach Hotel on October 14, 2018.
After less than a day of deliberation on Monday, a 12-person jury found Rogers not guilty of aggravated sexual assault causing reckless bodily harm but guilty of the less serious charge of sexual intercourse without consent.
Rogers now faces up to 14 years in prison.
On Tuesday morning, Crown prosecutor David Noll made a detention application seeking to have Rogers' bail revoked as there were concerns he may fail to appear in court now that he had been found guilty and faced a full-time custodial sentence.
However, Judge Chris Hoy did not grant the application and instead tightened Rogers' bail conditions.
Rogers must now report to Wollongong police station weekly, only leave his house in the company of his mother or wife and $50,000 surety was to be forfeited if Rogers did not appear in court.
During the trial, the jury heard that Rogers had followed the woman, who admitted to being intoxicated, around the hotel from 2.20am after he arrived.
The woman and her friends were drinking at the pub after attending a music gig at The Beaches in Thirroul.
CCTV footage showed Rogers tried to walk towards the woman but she ignored him, with her friend telling him to "f--k off".
It was suggested Rogers stalked and pursued the woman, and had a "blossoming sexual interest" in her.
Rogers then slipped into the back of the woman's taxi, which she only realised part way through the trip, before she told him, "don't get out, you are not coming into my home".
Once they got out of the taxi at her house, the woman said to Rogers "f--k off" repeatedly before she slipped and fell while walking down her steep driveway.
The woman felt "panicked" and "kept looking over her should to make sure the man was not there".
The jury heard Rogers came up behind her as she was unlocking her front door, and as she opened it, he pushed her to the hallway floor, got onto top of her and forcibly opened her legs.
She "screamed in pain" because she had previously had hip surgery and did not have full range of movement in her legs.
The woman could not recall Rogers removing her underwear but then felt three fingers in her vagina causing her "great pain".
The woman told the court that on two occasion she grabbed Rogers' neck and said "f--k you" before he knocked her hand away and covered her mouth.
She told him, "I can't physically do this" and "you are killing me", recalling "it felt like hours" and she became exhausted and tired.
The woman said it was only when she pretended to go to sleep that he left.
Minutes later she texted two friends, "I've been raped".
Most of the woman's version of events was corroborated by the evidence from her friend, her sister, police body worn camera footage, the conversation she had with Triple-0 operator, as well as the paramedic who took her to hospital for a medical examination.
Rogers' DNA was also found on the woman's umbrella, which was used to hit him, as well as on the wall of the hallway and on a medical swab of the woman's genitals.
The woman also had bruising on her thighs and injuries to her vagina.
In closing submission, Rogers' defence barrister Leah Rowan suggested her client, who was described as "socially awkward and shy", denied he pushed the woman onto the floor once in the hallway and instead the pair had "good old-fashioned passion".
Ms Rowan claimed Rogers had not been "hiding in the bushes" in her front yard and that instead he had helped the woman after she fell.
Rogers, while giving evidence, told the jury he and the woman had begun kissing before they moved to her couch, where he removed the woman's pantyhose and underwear and they consensually touched each other's genitals.
Ms Rowan also claimed the woman's evidence was unreliable because she was intoxicated at the time of the incident.
The defence lawyer also added that "absolutely nothing" in the footage at Towradgi Beach Hotel showed Rogers had a "blossoming sexual interest" in the woman as he was only in the pub for 17 minutes.
The case was adjourned to February 26 for sentencing.
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