Man found not guilty of rape

A BUNDABERG man has been found innocent in Bundaberg District Court yesterday, of raping his estranged wife.

The man clutched his mother's hand as the jury entered the room to deliver its verdict, and broke down when he was declared not guilty on one count of rape.

The jury of four men and eight women deliberated for about 45 minutes after Judge Richard Jones finished his summing up yesterday morning, on the third day of the trial.

The woman gave evidence on Monday that her marriage had deteriorated in September 2004, but the couple was still sharing a house with their two daughters.

But the jury was not convinced by the woman's claims that her estranged husband entered her bedroom on September 24, 2004, and raped her before throwing her out of the house.

During the trial, the woman and her parents gave evidence, and the court heard a recorded telephone conversation between the complainant and her former husband, which was made in 2008.

Although he was not legally required to, the accused man also took to the witness stand, where he claimed the sex was consensual.

Prosecutor Alex Stark told the court the woman was too scared of her husband to make a complaint initially, but confided in a friend several months after the incident and made a complaint to police four years later.

But defence barrister Simon Burgess warned the jury to be sceptical about her claims, as they were reported to police at the same time as the pair was entering into a bitter custody dispute over their children.

The judge recognised the difficult decisions faced by the jurors, noting that it was a “word against word” case.

“In this case, the complainant did not tell anyone until two months after (the alleged attack),” he said.

“That there was a four-year delay in the timing of the complaint is a matter you might well consider relevant.”