Doctor faces ACT Supreme Court rape trial over alleged attack on nurse after Christmas party

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, went on trial in the ACT Supreme Court on Monday after pleading not guilty to six charges, including two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.

He also denies two counts of committing an act of indecency without consent, and single charges of second-degree sexual assault and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The doctor, who no longer works in Canberra, has pleaded guilty to a perjury charge.

In her opening address, prosecutor Rebecca Christensen SC told a jury the Christmas party had begun in November 2019 at a hotel in Braddon.

When it subsequently moved to a bar in the same suburb, the doctor and nurse, who had not previously met, began speaking.

Ms Christensen said the nurse remembered the doctor eventually taking her hand and leading her outside, where she claimed he pushed her into a taxi bound for his home.

Once at the doctor's home, the prosecutor alleged, the man tried to push the nurse's face into a plate in an attempt to make her "inhale a substance".

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Ms Christensen told jurors the alleged sexual offences had begun in the dining room, where the doctor was accused of indecently assaulting the nurse with a toothbrush.

Things later moved to the doctor's bedroom, she said, where the accused allegedly pushed the nurse "really hard" onto his bed.

Ms Christensen said the woman hit her back, which ended up with a large bruise, on the wooden bedhead when this happened.

The prosecution case is that the doctor proceeded to commit another indecent act on the woman without consent, and to rape her in two different ways.

Ms Christensen told the jury the nurse had noticed the doctor was wearing a wedding ring and implored him to stop, saying "you're married", but he had just looked at her "blankly".

The prosecutor also said that when the nurse tried to leave, the doctor "threw her into a wall".

"She was yelling, 'Let me go'," Ms Christensen told the jury.

The court heard the woman eventually went home in an Uber.

The perjury charge, which the doctor has admitted, relates to evidence the man gave during legal proceedings earlier this year, when he falsely said a dog was living with him at the time in question.

While he has admitted that evidence was wrong, he denies attempting to pervert the course of justice by contacting his ex-wife and trying to have her change her testimony about the dog's whereabouts.

In his opening address, defence barrister James Maher urged jurors to "keep an open mind" about the case.

Mr Maher said it was not in dispute that his client and the alleged victim had gone to the doctor's home after the party, but he told jurors the woman had travelled there willingly.

He said the doctor did not deny claims some sexual activity had occurred at the apartment, but the man would argue what happened was all consensual.

Others assertions would be rejected entirely, Mr Maher said, telling jurors the man denied the claims about the toothbrush and the alleged attempt to stop the nurse leaving.

In relation to the alleged attempt to pervert the course of justice, Mr Maher told the jury the doctor did not deny having texted, phoned and emailed his ex-wife prior to the trial.

But the defence barrister said what the accused had intended when he made this contact was "very much in dispute".

Following opening addresses, jurors watched a video of the nurse reporting the alleged rape to police in July 2020.

She described feeling "spacey, stumbly and very drunk" while at the doctor's apartment.

The trial, before the jury and Chief Justice Lucy McCallum, continues.

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