A Sydney dance instructor has been cleared of sexually assaulting a young pupil in his Canberra hotel room during a weekend dance competition last year.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The then 43-year-old, who cannot be named, stood trial in the ACT Supreme Court on two charges of sexual intercourse without consent involving a teenage student 26 years his junior.
A jury began deliberating on his fate on Tuesday morning and took less than a day to find him not guilty of both charges, delivering its verdict about 3.30pm.
The pupil, then aged 17, had stayed in his teacher’s hotel room on the last night of the weekend competition, after his other plans fell through.
The teenager accused the instructor of molesting him after coming home intoxicated from the competition’s after party in the early hours of the morning in June last year.
He claimed the teacher had touched him and performed oral sex on him, and that he froze during the assault. But the instructor had fought the charges, saying the sex with the boy was consensual. He said he had come home affected by alcohol and was feeling a bit ‘‘risque’’.
The teacher said he had asked the boy, who did not go out to the party, if he wanted to come into his bed.
He said he asked his student if he was OK with the sexual acts, and said the teenager had given consent.
The teenager’s high school teacher and mentor gave evidence that the boy had called her the following week to say he had been sexually assaulted.
The teacher had then reported the incident and police soon became involved.
The Crown had also pointed to transcripts of text messages between the teenager and a friend, in which the complainant wrote, ‘‘I have so much to tell you and none of it’s good.’’
They said the dance instructor had been in a position of authority, and had been like a father figure to the pupil.
The Crown described him to the jury as a ‘‘calculated and rehearsed witness’’.
They had also claimed that the teacher had used the offer of a new, more experienced dance partner to keep the boy quiet.
That was rejected by the defence who said it was hardly credible to equate the new dance partner with hush money.
The defence counsel had told jury members they needed to remain open and impartial, saying it was not a court of morals but a court of law.
‘‘You can be downright disgusted and still acquit,’’ he said.
The court has previously heard that the prominent instructor is still working with his dance school.
