Only an hour after he was confronted with accusations of a sexual assault, Wallabies star Kurtley Beale told a player manager he had “messed up”, a court has heard.
Mr Beale, 35, is facing a jury trial at Sydney’s Downing Centre Court after pleading not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of sexual touching.
Police allege Mr Beale groped the woman’s bottom at the Beach Road bar in Bondi on December 17, 2022, before forcing her into oral sex in a stall in the men’s bathroom.
The 29-year-old put the accusation to Mr Beale in a phone call secretly recorded by police.
Just an hour later, Mr Beale dialled then-rugby player manager Isaac Moses.
“I messed up. I was out at the pub before Chrissy,” Mr Beale told Mr Moses in the second call, which was intercepted by Bondi police investigating the allegations.
“A bird rang me out of the blue a saying… she’s like, a little bit upset because I misread the whole situation, the whole scenario.
“She performed oral sex on me, but like it wasn’t really anything. Literally two seconds, not even that.
“She’s like, I didn’t really consent to that action blah, blah … and I’m like, trying to recollect everything that happened.”
Mr Moses asked Mr Beale “did it happen?”
The rugby star replied: “Yeah, I remember being in the cubicle”.
Mr Beale said he asked the woman if she was recording, to which she said no, before Mr Moses suggested she may have still been in contact with the police.
“Kurtley, obviously she did consent otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. True, right?” Mr Beale replied: “Yeah”.
The call ended after Mr Moses informed Mr Beale his phone was dying and that he’d instead call him on his wife’s phone.
Staff members from the Beach Road bar inside the men’s bathroom during the time of the alleged assault also gave evidence about what they saw and heard on the night.
Kitchen hand Nirmal Tamang told the jury that he had seen two pairs of feet when he entered the bathroom along with another staff member shortly after midnight.
“You thought it was a male and female because you could tell one set of shoes were like running shoes and the other were female’s heels,” Crown prosecutor Jeff Tunks said.
He added later: “You say the female’s heels were facing towards the door and that the men’s feet were facing towards the toilet seat (and) the wall.”
Under cross-examination, Mr Tamang said he spent about two minutes in the bathroom and he did not hear anyone say “no” or “stop”.
He went on to add that he also did not hear Mr Beale say “oh f**k off then”, as the alleged victim claimed, nor did he see any woman exit the bathroom while he was there.
A second employee who was not working at the time of the alleged incident also told the court on Monday that he did not see or hear anything “memorable” in the bathroom.
The two men, as well as a third who did not give evidence, are seen on CCTV entering and exiting the bathroom at the time of the alleged sexual assault.
The 29-year-old woman claimed in her evidence last week that Mr Beale had been “forceful” when he pleaded for sex before barging in on her in the bathroom stall.
She later reported the matter to NSW Police who arranged a secretly recorded phone conversation the following month when she put the allegations to Mr Beale.
Senior Constable Christina Tesoriero told the jury on Tuesday that she had helped set up the call, known as a pretext call, but was not present when it was made.
She said she also did not see notes made by the woman before the call in which the jury were told the woman wrote “convince him he’s guilty and not innocent”.
Constable Tesoriero was grilled over what Mr Beale’s barrister, Margaret Cunneen SC, described as a pursuit of key witnesses only after he was charged.
“You had not even interviewed the two employees who had been in the bathroom at the same time as Mr Beale until after he was charged,” Ms Cunneen said.
“Can I suggest to you that you made the arrest and charged (Mr Beale) first, and investigated later… They were pretty important witnesses, weren’t they?”
Constable Tesoriero admitted she had been a plain clothes detectives for only four months, and that the CCTV footage had differed from the woman’s statement.
She also gave evidence about another man who had interactions with Mr Beale outside the bathroom, who police were unable to locate before the trial.
Critically, Ms Cunneen questioned whether Constable Tesoriero whether police investigated the three elements of the offence: the act, consent, and knowledge of consent.
Opening the defence case, Ms Cunneen said: “If a person accused of (sexual assault) doesn’t know there is no consent or misread the situation, it cannot be proven.
She later added that: “If you’re not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt (the woman) is an honest and accurate witness … you could never find that he is guilty.”
Ms Cunneen called just two witnesses in the defence case, which she said went to Mr Beale’s character: his mother-in-law and Mr Moses, his former manager.
Mr Moses described Mr Beale as having the “biggest heart of all the players I’ve managed”, and said the allegations had “huge effect” on his career and “hurt him a lot”.
For her part, Mr Beale’s mother-in-law said the rugby star was a “good man with a good heart”.
She said that while the alleged sexual acts had been “hurtful”, Mr Beale had made a mistake and that she believed him when she said it was consensual.
Constable Tesoriero also told the jury that people present in the bar at the time of the alleged incident were contacted to give statements, a number of whom declined.
Mr Beale’s lawyer, Margaret Cunneen, previously argued that the alleged act was consensual and the woman had made the complaint to gain “sympathy” from her fiance.
Friends and family of the alleged victim gave evidence on Monday about the woman’s state of mind after the night as well as an argument with her fiance.
The trial will continue on Wednesday.
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