Skip links

Cricketer pursued woman ‘relentlessly’ before alleged rape, court told – verdict on September 28

Sri Lankan international cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka pursued his Tinder date relentlessly and had “plenty of opportunity” to remove a condom during sex, a prosecutor has told a Sydney court.

But the batsman’s barrister argued the woman is “demonstrably unreliable” and CCTV from the night does not match her narrative that his client was forceful and aggressive.

Danushka Gunathilaka and the woman on the ferry to her eastern suburbs home on November 2, 2022.

Gunathilaka, 32, is accused of removing a condom without the 29-year-old woman’s knowledge during sex, known as stealthing. He has faced a four-day judge-alone trial in Downing Centre District Court after pleading not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent.

In a closing address to Judge Sarah Huggett on Thursday, Crown prosecutor Gabrielle Steedman said Gunathilaka pursued the woman “quite relentlessly” in messages sent before the date on November 2, 2022. They went to the Opera Bar, Frankie’s Pizza and caught a ferry to her eastern suburbs home.

The woman claims she was forcefully kissed and had her buttocks slapped on the ferry, was pushed backwards on her lounge, and choked and slapped again during intercourse in her bedroom for 10 to 15 minutes. She said within three to five seconds of the sex ending, she saw a condom on the floor.

Steedman said the sexual episode “turned out very differently to what she expected or wanted”.

CCTV shows the pair leaving the Opera Bar arm-in-arm.

“He was rough, did not care or respect any of her requests or boundaries … entirely consistent with someone who would, in that state of mind, remove his condom, despite her clear wishes to the contrary,” the prosecutor said.

Steedman said the complainant made it “entirely clear her consent to sex was conditional on him wearing a condom”, and DNA results matched her account that she had opened the condom packet.

She said Gunathilaka admitted in his police interview that he did not like having sex with a condom.

The prosecutor said Gunathilaka gave a “jumbled and confused answer” to police about the use of a second condom, but only one was found at the scene.

“The accused almost panics when he is asked questions about putting on this condom and his assertion that there were two,” Steedman said.

She said he was “laying it on thick, trying to paint a picture that he was all for the condom, so much that he got a second one out when the first malfunctioned”.

Steedman said the woman claimed Gunathilaka choked her on at least three occasions, leaving him with a hand to himself.

“In between, he could’ve been doing anything with his hands,” the prosecutor said.

She said he had “plenty of opportunity” to remove the condom.

“He doesn’t have his hands tied behind his back, he was a man annoyed about wearing a condom.”

Defence barrister Murugan Thangaraj, SC, argued there was “no window” for Gunathilaka to have removed the condom during sex.

“She never says his penis was outside her vagina. She never says that,” Thangaraj told the court.

“She describes continuous sexual activity. That ends it. The Crown cannot prove its case at all, let alone to the requisite standard, with that evidence.”

He said the woman gave self-serving evidence, and it was “completely illogical” to claim Gunathilaka had pushed her on the couch and that she froze if she then “initiated movement into the bedroom” and lit candles.

Regarding CCTV of the pair kissing and embracing at Circular Quay and on the ferry, Thangaraj said it was “positively inconsistent” with the narrative that Gunathilaka had been forceful or aggressive.

“This evidence is another example of why she was demonstrably unreliable,” the barrister said.

He said the woman’s story had been “shaped to fit the allegation”. He said she had expressed a belief to police that the condom was removed, which was “totally different” to her uncertainty when she told her friends “I don’t know if he took it off” and “I’m not sure, I just have a feeling”.

He noted two wrapped condoms were found in Gunathilaka’s Burberry satchel bag seized by police.

“If he’s not someone who’s going to use a condom, why is he carrying them around?” Thangaraj said. “He obviously plans to use them.”

Huggett will deliver her verdict on September 28.

This website uses cookies to improve your web experience.
Home
Account
Cart
Search