‘Burst into tears': Jury shown CCTV in TC Robati rape trial
A woman who claims she was raped by former Brisbane Broncos player Teui 'TC' Robati has told a jury she felt pressured, intimidated and scared during a late-night encounter in a Fortitude Valley hotel toilet.
Mr Robati, 24, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape, with the trial concluding in Brisbane District Court on Tuesday after two days of evidence and closing arguments.
The case is now in the hands of a jury of seven women and five men.
The court was told the alleged incident happened shortly after midnight on December 11, 2022, after the 24-year-old woman had been out drinking with friends and met Mr Robati at The Prince Consort Hotel.
In prerecorded testimony shown to the jury, she said she believed he was inviting her upstairs to do 'a line of cocaine' and followed him into a disabled toilet.
Crown prosecutor Isabelle MacNicol said after closing the door, Mr Robati 'almost immediately' put his arms around the woman's neck and started kissing her.
Inside the cubicle, Mr Robati allegedly pulled his pants down, sat down on the toilet and told the woman to 'suck it' despite her saying she didn't want to have sex.
'She was scared, she started pacing. She covered her eyes, as she didn't want to look at the defendant's penis,' Ms MacNicol told the court.
'She said 'I don't want to do this, I don't know why I'm here'.'
Ms MacNicol said Mr Robati kept asking 'over and over again' until the woman felt she had no choice but to give in.
'Just because someone doesn't fight doesn't mean that they have consented,' she said.
'There was no consent.'
'She felt intimidated and froze.'
The woman told the court that she felt 'pressured and compelled' and eventually performed oral sex on Mr Robati without her consent.
She said she momentarily stopped, but he then forced her head down again.
'After about 15 seconds, she started to gag, feeling like she was going to vomit,' Ms MacNicol said.
The court was told that Mr Robati allegedly began to laugh at her.
The woman said she then told him that she needed to go to the toilet, got dressed and left.
CCTV footage shown to the jury captured the woman appearing distressed about 12.20am, approaching a stranger in the hallway who hugged her.
Witnesses later testified they found her visibly upset and recounted what she told them had allegedly happened in the bathroom.
'She burst into tears, struggle(d) to speak,' Ms MacNicol said, describing it as an 'emotional fallout'.
The court was told the woman told her friends about the incident immediately.
'She didn't sit on this, she didn't hide it … she was being transparent,' Ms MacNicol said.
She said her emotion was 'genuine' when giving evidence.
Ms MacNicol added that Mr Robati's size, the small toilet cubicle and the repeated asking meant it was not consensual.
She said following him into the bathroom did not equate to consent and described his actions as 'intimidation'.
During his closing address, Mr Robati's defence barrister David Funch said that no one knew 'what happened in that room'.
'This young man's life is in your hands,' he told the jury.
'She may well think that she's been raped, she may well believe that, but feelings aren't facts.
'There's two sides to every story.'
He said the woman followed Mr Robati into the toilet and ultimately left on her own.
He said there was no evidence that Mr Robati had cocaine, offered cocaine or mentioned cocaine during the interaction, and the woman's belief they were going upstairs for drugs was unfounded.
He focused on the word 'forced', noting the complainant testified that she felt that way because of past trauma and Mr Robati's size.
'That's got nothing to do with Mr Robati,' Mr Funch said.
'That's not his fault.
'There was no suggestion that she could not have walked out of that toilet at any time,' he said.
He conceded that Mr Robati displayed 'poor behaviour' that night, but 'poor behaviour doesn't make you a rapist.'
Mr Funch said Mr Robati asked if the woman wanted to perform the act and believed she had consented even if in her own mind she hadn't.
'She might have felt that way and that's a matter for her and that's not his fault,' he said.
Mr Funch told the jury to consider the context of the second alleged act, where the woman claimed Mr Robati pushed her head down again. He said Mr Robati believed the entire encounter was consensual.
'She stopped performing oral sex on him when she chose to, that's her evidence,' Mr Funch said.
'When she chose for it to end, it ended.'
Mr Robati was stood down by the Brisbane Broncos in February 2023, just weeks before the start of the NRL season, after the allegations became public. He has not played in the NRL since.
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