Ex-soldier appeals horrific rape crimes
A former soldier who drugged and raped multiple women he met on social media dating apps has lodged an appeal against his convictions.
Father-of-two Adam Lusk was imprisoned for 28 years - one of the longest terms in Western Australia for such crimes - in January after he was found guilty of 97 offences.
Lusk drugged 12 victims, three of whom were teenage girls, so they were unconscious, between 2020 and 2022. He filmed nine of the victims.
Lusk has now lodged an appeal against the convictions.
During the sentencing, Judge Alan Troy said Lusk's sexual offending stole something 'precious and irreplaceable' from his victims.
'To drug someone with stupefying substances and commit acts they did not consent to is going beyond the norm,' he said.
He said if the police had not arrested Lusk in 2022 he would have continued offending.
'While your offending does not involve threats, or violence, the absence of those factors shows the offending could have been worse, but it does not diminish your actions,' he said.
'Stupefying drugs were more than adequate for your purposes.
'You took away their ability by drugging your victims so they were not capable of resisting your sexual offending.'
Following a complaint to police, detectives seized Lusk's phone and found videos of vile sexual abuse in a folder titled 'secret'.
Some of the women had no memory of the assault and only found out what occurred when police approached them about the recordings found on Lusk's phone months later.
Three of his victims were teenagers aged 17 and 16 when the offending occurred.
Judge Troy said the women would have been deeply distressed to find out months later that Lusk had recorded and violated them.
'Your offending was planned and premeditated, it was truly predatory you showed no mercy when you forced yourself on your victims,' he said.
'You deliberately rendered your victims unconscious for an extended period of time, you posed a significant risk to their lives and safety.
'Your compulsive desire to seek sexual gratification gave no thought to the impact of your conduct to those victims.
'The majority of the victims were all remarkably younger than you, in that respect they were more vulnerable.
'Three of the victims were still children aged under 18.'
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