CONTENT WARNING: This article mentions alleged sexual assault.
Darcy Nivison Clifton has been accused of raping and filming an 18-year-old University of Sydney student in his apartment, who was so intoxicated she could “hardly stand up”. He has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent.
On Wednesday, 22-year-old Clifton pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent over an alleged rape that took place in late 2022.
Per The Sydney Morning Herald, prosecutor James Staples outlined the alleged events, stating that the student attended a party at a bar located on USYD’s St Paul’s College grounds.
Staples went on to state in his closing address that Clifton and two of his friends arrived at the party, which included both students of the uni and members of the public, before the woman arrived with her friends at 7.30pm. He said according to CCTV footage, the two groups were seen drinking together over the next two hours before they left at the same time after the complainant was refused service.
The court heard it was after leaving the bar that the woman ran into Clifton on USYD grounds, whom she kissed before he booked an Uber back to his Rose Bay apartment.
Staples went on to state that the CCTV footage “shows the complainant to be plainly and obviously unsteady on her feet, affected plainly by alcohol”.
“I won’t mince my words about it, members of the jury: there are times where it appears she can hardly stand up and is falling all over the accused,” Staples said.
It is not in dispute that before midnight, half an hour after the pair arrived in Clifton’s home, the pair had sex. However, it’s disputed whether if the USYD Student was in the midst of an “alcoholic blackout” and was able to give consent, as the prosecutor alleged, or if she was a “mutual or active” participant as the defence argued.
Clifton testified that after five minutes of kissing, he asked the woman, “Do you want to do it?”, to which he said she responded, “Yeah”.
“Not much other conversation is recalled until he decides to take a video, apparently, because he thought the two of them could lay back in bed and watch it together after the sexual intercourse, which I also suggest you might find a strange explanation for the short 19-second recording and what it shows,” Staples said referring to Clifton’s evidence that the pair had kissed before heading into his room, per SMH.
“But in any event, her response, according to his evidence, is, apparently, ‘Yeah, you can take a video’.”
The prosecutor also said medical experts say the woman appeared intoxicated in the video and claimed she had no memory of sexual activity until she saw the video on her own phone.
Staples added that the video also had audio evidence that “contains evidence of slurred speech at around the time of sexual intercourse”.
Defence barrister Angela Cook, SC, suggested that the woman was smiling throughout the video and that the audio recording was “muffled” rather than “slurred”, adding that she “responds to what is going on”.
Per the SMH, the court was then told that the woman’s friends called her parents after she was unable to be reached. The parents then tracked the student to Clifton’s apartment through a location app.
The parents then drove to Clifton’s Rose Bay home and knocked a number of times before contacting the police, who reported to the apartment before the woman went home with her family.
Staples then highlighted medical evidence which recorded the woman’s blood alcohol level “at the time of the alleged sexual assault”, which calculated a BAC between 0.114 and 0.194, as well as two observations from police officers of intoxication, one hour and 20 minutes after the alleged assault.
The jury was then told that the woman told her friends and mother that she was concerned that she’d been sexually assaulted the following day. The complainant then sought out a medical examination, and two days later, she filed a report to the police.
Staples argued that there was a “very real risk that she was not consenting in the relevant sense, that is to say, a real risk that she was so affected by alcohol to be incapable of the free, voluntary agreement”.
Cook argued that the woman’s “claimed lack of memory” was a “convenient stance”. Cook also claimed that texts between the complainant and her parents “demonstrate her recognition was sufficiently intact”, while the Crown argued that several texts contained typos.
Judge Jennie Girdham, SC, told the jury that “it was not for the accused to prove the allegations were false, but for the Crown to prove them beyond a reasonable doubt” while summing up on Tuesday.
Girdham is expected to finish her summary on Wednesday, when the jury will begin to deliberate the case, the SMH reports.
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