The female cadet at the centre of the Australian Defence Force Academy Skype case said she was offered no support by the Defence Force, and felt she had a duty to go to the media to protect other women in the military.
And the woman has described the man who streamed vision of her having consensual sex as a ‘‘scumbag’’ during a heated clash with a defence barrister, played to the jury on the second day of an ACT Supreme Court trial.
Daniel McDonald, 21, and Dylan Deblaquiere, 20, are facing charges related to the so-called ‘‘Skype incident’’, on the ADFA campus in March 2011.
The female cadet had agreed to have consensual sex with McDonald as part of a ‘‘friends with benefits’’ arrangement.
The pair had sex about midnight on the night of March 29, and the female cadet then went back to her room.
She logged onto her computer to discover a Facebook message accidentally sent to her by McDonald, which read:
‘‘About to root a girl n [sic] have a webcam set up to the boys in another room.’’
The female cadet wrote back, saying, ‘‘Please tell me that wasn’t on webcam.’’ She said McDonald called her and told her it was not.
She said she was later told by a Defence Force investigator the sex had been filmed using the webcam on McDonald’s laptop and streamed to a group of other cadets in Deblaquiere’s room. The court was played the recorded cross-examination of the female cadet on Tuesday.
At one point, she hit back at questions from defence barrister Phillip Priest, QC, about her evidence regarding the timing of her Facebook messages, saying: ‘‘You can endeavour to make me look bad as much as you want ... but your scumbag of a client filmed me having sex without my consent and that is the only fact that matters.’’
The female cadet was asked why she had gone to the media, calling Channel Ten and organising an interview.
She was accused by Mr Priest of manipulating the media.
But the cadet said she had been offered no support by the Defence Force, and that she was told police did not regard the incident as a crime under ACT law.
The Australian Defence Force Investigative Service had also told her they would not be investigating the matter as it was not serious enough.
‘‘I went to the media because I was not being given any support by Defence, when I was the victim,’’ she said.
Mr Priest put it to the female cadet that she knew she was being filmed and had consented. The cadet was accused of seeing a blue light indicating the webcam was on, and acknowledging the screen through which other male cadets were watching.
‘‘You could not have failed to see the blue light on Mr McDonald’s computer when you were in his room,’’ Mr Priest said.
‘‘And you could not have failed to see the box on his computer screen showing the connection at the other end, isn’t that so?’’
The cadet denied ever having consented to the broadcast.
‘‘I broke the [ADFA] rules, yes, but I did not agree to be filmed or violated in the way I was,’’ she said. She told the court she went into shock when she first learnt the sexual encounter had been broadcast to others.
The trial continues before acting Justice John Nield on Wednesday.