A seven-day rape trial got underway this week at Melbourne’s County Court, where a 24-year-old tradesperson from Ballarat has formally pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old visitor to the regional Victorian city.
Prosecutor Andrew Buckland laid out the Crown’s case to the seated jury on Monday, outlining the sequence of events that unfolded in February 2024, when the defendant, Lachlan Young, first met the teenage complainant, who was visiting Ballarat from another part of the state, at a mutual friend’s home. Over the course of an evening spent socializing and drinking, the pair exchanged small talk and connected on the social messaging platform Snapchat, Buckland told the court.
During their conversation, Buckland claimed Young made an advance toward the teen, asking if she wanted to engage in sexual activity, a proposal the complainant immediately rejected. The girl later retreated inside the friend’s home to rest, but the two continued to exchange messages over Snapchat, eventually agreeing to meet in the backyard of the property around 3 a.m. on February 5, according to the prosecution’s account.
Buckland told jurors that once in the backyard, the pair engaged in consensual sexual touching, but the teen explicitly told Young she did not consent to penetrative sex. Despite this clear refusal, Young went on to rape the girl for two to three minutes, Buckland alleged, during which the complainant was so shocked and frightened she froze, unable to act. After the alleged assault, Young told the teen she should return inside before other partygoers started looking for her, the prosecution added.
The following morning, the girl told a close friend what had happened, Buckland said. Shortly after, Young contacted her over Snapchat asking if she had disclosed the incident to her friend, which she initially denied. Young reportedly responded by saying “Well, we didn’t do much anyway.” Six days after the alleged incident, the complainant messaged Young asking if he had told his friend “about the night you f*cked me?” When Young replied “What are you on about?”, the teen responded by accusing him of ignoring her refusal, writing “You’re pathetic Lachie you literally f*cked me even though I said no.”
It was not until March 2024 that the complainant reported the alleged assault to a school wellbeing counsellor, who subsequently alerted Victoria Police, triggering the official investigation and subsequent charges.
Glenn Casement, the defence barrister representing Young, pushed back against the prosecution’s claims in his opening address to the jury, noting that Young does not dispute that the pair engaged in consensual sexual touching in the backyard that night, but outright denies any non-consensual penetrative sexual activity took place.
Casement pointed to Young’s Snapchat reply of “What are you on about?” as evidence of his client’s confusion at the sudden accusation, arguing that the core question for the jury to decide is not whether any interaction happened, but whether penetrative sex ever occurred. “Whatever else went on, sexual penetration of that kind is denied in the brief time they were in the backyard,” Casement told the court.
The defence lawyer stressed that the credibility and reliability of the complainant’s account is the most critical factor in the case, urging jurors to carefully examine any inconsistencies in her statements to different people over the course of the investigation. He questioned whether jurors would find the complainant has altered her version of events depending on who she has spoken to, and whether major discrepancies in her account would leave them with deep concerns over the reliability of her evidence.
The trial, overseen by Judge Caitlin English, is scheduled to continue over the coming week, with both sides set to present all evidence and witness testimony before jurors retire to deliberate on a verdict.