Prosecutors in the trial of an ADFA cadet accused of raping another cadet have closed the Crown case, using the opportunity to respond to defence suggestions the woman lied about her interest in the man.
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In her closing arguments on Tuesday, prosecutor Kylie Weston-Scheuber said while jurors may question some parts of the woman's evidence, they would have no trouble finding "she was one hundred per cent telling the truth" about what happened that morning.
"You will find her a genuine and credible witness," prosecutor Kylie Weston-Scheuber said in her two-hour closing address to the jury, "you will find her solid in relation to the events of 28 May."
The accused, Jack Toby Mitchell, 19, has faced an ACT Supreme Court trial over the last week and his fate will soon be with the jury.
It's alleged that on the morning of May 28, 2016 after a night out at Canberra club Mooseheads he and the woman returned to his room where she fell asleep before waking to him having sex with her.
He has pleaded not guilty to rape, and says the sex was consensual.
Dr Weston-Scheuber noted the woman had testified that she was never romantically interested in Mr Mitchell. She foreshadowed the defence would say the woman was lying - given her friends and others had testified to her flirting with and liking him.
"You might think she had a romantic interest in the accused," Dr Weston-Scheuber said, reminding the jury they can accept all or part of any witness' evidence. "You might think that in light of everything that happened, she could not bring herself to concede she was interested in this boy."
Dr Weston-Scheuber also responded to defence suggestions the woman, who was also 18, had hatched a plan at Mooseheads that night to have sex with the man.
She pointed to a conversation between the pair captured on surveillance footage, which the woman said was another "just friends" conversation and which was not challenged by the defence.
Mr Mitchell threw his hands up "in exasperation" afterwards, she said, and the woman had messaged a friend asking to be picked up.
The prosecutor suggested the man had become impatient waiting for the woman to be ready to be with him, and again pointed to his apparent frustration in the black and white surveillance footage.
She pointed to the woman's substantial intoxication - five spirits the woman had consumed in about half-an-hour - in addition to two drinks back in her room, and asked the jury to use their common sense and life experience to help judge her level of intoxication.
The drinks, her lack of dinner, her age and weight were "an entirely proper basis" on which to find she was substantially intoxicated.
She repeated a message from Mr Mitchell to a friend: "I rooted that chick I was baiting." Was he mouthing off to friends, she asked, or did that suggest his intention all along was to have sex with her?
The woman had made multiple complaints to multiple people, the prosecutor told the jury, in which she described falling asleep in his room and passing in and out of consciousness.
Dr Weston-Scheuber noted that independent evidence showed they had swiped into Mr Mitchell's room at 12.34am, and the woman had messaged him that she was back in her room at 3.50am.
This was was "entirely consistent" with the woman's account of what happened that morning, the prosecutor said, that the woman had returned to his room and kissed for a while before falling asleep.
Mr Mitchell's version of events had a time gap, she said. He had told police they talked for a bit about "random stuff", had sex for up to 45 minutes, and spoke again briefly before she left.
The prosecutor addressed character evidence of Mr Mitchell, including from the former principal at the man's regional Victorian high school where he was co-school captain, which spoke of his honesty, integrity and reliability. The prosecutor reminded the jury the "fact that a person is of previous good character does not mean they are incapable of committing an offence".
The trial continues.
