CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses sexual assault.
A man who sexually assaulted more than a dozen women at a Melbourne nightclub has been spared jail time.
David Maria Anthony Rayan, 35, looked forward and nodded as he was sentenced to a two-year community corrections order on Monday.
Rayan had pleaded guilty to 17 charges of sexual assault and one count of attempted sexual assault over attacks on 18 women at Revolver Upstairs in Prahran in September and October, 2023.
CCTV footage from the nightclub showed Rayan groping his victims on the buttocks and stroking their backs. Rayan, a former PwC IT worker, was also accused of kissing some of his victims on the head and shoulders, and rubbing his groin against a woman’s body.
Many of the victims had been identified from CCTV and contacted by police about the alleged offending.
Some were foreigners who had since returned home overseas and police liaised with international authorities to get statements from them. A large number of these people were not Australian citizens, prosecutors told the court in 2023.
Victorian County Court Judge Peter Rozen described the offending as brazen as he handed down Rayan’s sentence.
“Your offending was deliberate and you knew what you were doing,” he said.
Judge Rozen found Rayan’s moral culpability was considerable and that he still lacked insight into his offending, which was concerning.
But the judge accepted that his risk of reoffending was low and the crimes were out of character.
Rayan must complete 180 hours of unpaid community work as part of his two-year community corrections order.
Lead image: AAP
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