Accused Gerringong molesting masseur Mark Horsfall has taken the stand, telling a jury he is innocent of raping two women.
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At Wollongong District Court Thursday morning, the 61-year-old denied he digitally raped a physically disabled woman or that he targeted a second woman who had sought his professional services after she was injured in a violent relationship.
In an account at odds with those given by the women, Horsfall said the first alleged sexual encounter never happened and the second was consensual, initiated by the woman who was "trying to grab my penis" as she lay face-down on a massage table at his Culburra Beach home.
"Her hands were wandering a little bit when I was working up the top of the body," he said.
"She said she wanted me to f--- her and I said, 'no that's not going to happen', because her son and my mum were in the next room. It would be too loud, too noisy. But during the massage we made out."
Under cross-examination, Horsfall admitted he was romantically interested in the woman, who he shared texts and phone calls with in the leadup to the massage in March 2021.
But he told jurors he "did nothing to invite" the woman's advances, claiming she repeatedly removed her towel and "grabbed me by the balls ... and started rubbing me up" before he ultimately performed oral sex on her.
"I didn't throw the leg over, so to speak," he said.
The woman earlier told jurors she lay on the table in fear as Horsfall molested her, then digitally and orally raped her in an hour-long ordeal.
Challenging Horsfall's account, Crown prosecutor Nerissa Keay noted the room was quite close to where the woman's son and Horsfall's mother were watching a movie.
"And you say that as soon as the massage started she engaged in sexual acts with you that you didn't want?" she said.
"It wasn't straight away. It would be 15 mins into it," Horsfall replied.
"You didn't want it?"
"Not at the time, no."
Horsfall conceded he was wrong in earlier claiming the woman sent him a pornographic film of a sexual massage.
Records tendered in court showed the video in fact came from an all-male Facebook group Horsfall was part of. He commented on it, "LOL only happened a few times with my massages".
Horsfall is charged with two counts of sexual assault, and one of sexual touching without consent, stemming from his encounter with the woman.
A fourth charge - aggravated sexual assault - relates to an earlier accuser, who alleges Horsfall digitally raped during a massage at her mother's South Coast home in January 2021.
Horsfall's claim that the woman was wearing long pajama pants was challenged in court.
"Are you suggesting she was wearing long pyjama pants because it would have been very difficult for you to put your hand up those and into her vagina?" Ms Keay asked.
"No," Horsfall replied.
Explaining the short duration of the woman's massage - 15 minutes - he said, "I worked on the area I needed to work on".
He denied he went and had a cup of coffee with the woman's mother afterwards, leaving the woman - who was reliant on a wheelchair - lying facedown on an ottoman.
"You walked away because you'd sexually assaulted her," Ms Keay said.
"No I did not ... I helped her up and sat her on her walker," he said.
Horsfall has admitted to interfering with five women who attended a Gerringong massage parlour between November 2020 and March 2021. The jury will be given a document detailing those events at trial's end, and has been instructed to take this additional evidence into account when considering whether a pattern of behaviour has been established.
Defence barrister Rajiv Baldeo told jurors Horsfall's first accuser had falsely told police that Horsfall suggested her massage, when electronic messages showed she had been asking him for a massage for more than two weeks.
He called on jurors to dismiss the evidence of Horsfall's second accuser, noting the woman continued communicating with him after she alleged the assault.
"If [she] had been sexually assaulted in the way she said ... you have no sensible reason why she would have a conversation with him less than 24 hours later, and [would] go on and on and on ... Not only did those communications increase, but she spent time with him - she went on a lunch date with him. They spent that time together. Why?"
The woman told police she felt like she was being stalked by Horsfall.
The trial is unable to progress on Friday. The jury of seven women and five men is expected to begin its deliberations from Monday, after Judge Robert Sutherland summarises the case.