At the close of a former lecturer's trial for raping and inappropriately touching students, lawyers have asked the jury to consider if the allegations were an uncomfortable reality, or unrealistic.
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Over the course of several days in April 2015, Arthur Marshall Hoyle, 67, had invited five women to his office to talk about their semester 1 business law paper, and concerns they may have plagiarised.
The students have said that once alone, Mr Hoyle had touched them, complimented them or tried to kiss them, while he questioned possible signs of cheating in the papers and asked what they would suggest.
In a closing address on Monday, prosecutor Trent Hickey told the court Mr Hoyle had pressured the students to accept his sexual advances, in exchange for him turning a blind eye to their assignments.
"Can I suggest that the uncomfortable reality ... is that the accused moved from one student to another making sexual advances on them, and hitting on them in the ways that each described," he said.
In the case of the woman who Mr Hoyle is accused of raping, Mr Hickey said the lecturer had told her she was at risk of suspension if she failed the business law subject again.
"He couldn't have rammed home the point harder about the perilous state of her studies," Mr Hickey told the ACT Supreme Court jury.
Barrister Liesl Chapman SC, said the Crown case was unrealistic.
It didn't fit, she said, that Mr Hoyle would have broadcast his intention to meet with the students - to the dean of education, to the head of the law school, and to his fellow business law lecturer - if he had intended to use those meetings to behave inappropriately with the students.
Ms Chapman said she also wanted to put to rest any suggestion Mr Hoyle, who was the postgraduate lecturer, had deliberately selected six female students from the undergraduate class for indecent purposes.
"That evidence ... I say is nonsense, and the sinister overtones sought to be drawn from it are completely baseless," she said.
Ms Chapman said emails tendered to the court showed two students had been referred to him by the undergraduate lecturer for inquiry. One of these was the student Mr Hoyle is alleged to have raped.
The defence barrister also wanted to put to rest any suggestion Mr Hoyle had called the students to his office for some "nefarious" reason.
She said the complainant's essays had shown multiple matches with other assignments, or possible links to cheat sites. One student was found guilty of academic misconduct, Ms Chapman said, while another had repeatedly used medical certificates for extensions.
"The evidence established there was good, proper academic reason for Mr Hoyle, as unit convenor, to call each student into a meeting to talk about the assignment they completed," she said.
Mr Hoyle has faced a two week trial accused of 10 offences - eight counts of an acts of indecency and two of rape - against five complainants.
On Tuesday, Ms Chapman will complete her closing address. Justice Michael Elkaim will then address the jury before it begins deliberations.
