Thomas Earle faces sentencing in ACT Supreme Court for rape of Hinge match

In February, a jury found Thomas Earle, 26, guilty of raping a woman he met on Hinge.

The Weetangera man was found guilty of one count of sexual intercourse without consent and one count of committing an act of indecency without consent.

He was found not guilty of two other counts of sexual intercourse without consent.

Earle's trial heard he had been staying the night at the victim's home on December 29, 2021.

They had previously dated for about a month before deciding to be friends.

On the night in in question, the woman invited Earle over for dinner and they smoked marijuana, drank alcohol and shared "jungle juice", also known as amyl nitrate.

Prosecutor Beth Morrisroe previously told the court they then watched a movie in the lounge room and the woman went to bed while Earle stayed up.

Ms Morrisroe said the woman awoke about 2am to find him spooning her and touching her genitals.

The jury ultimately found he proceeded to rape the victim.

On Friday, the woman read a victim impact statement out to the court.

READ ALSO:

"This violent removal of the right to my own body has crept its way into every nook and cranny of my life, and obliterated every understanding I had of myself and the world," she said.

"Thomas has been charged with raping my body, because legally you can't charge someone for raping another person's soul.

"I feel like I have been murdered, but my body has been left alive. My soul, my spirit, all the little things that make up [me], have been crushed.

"I want justice for him assaulting my body, sure. But what I really want is justice for him assaulting my spirit."

The victim told the court she went from being a financially independent woman to moving back in with her parents and had turned to alcohol to self-medicate.

"I was so terrorised by the idea that he was in me in the weeks following that, no matter what I did, I couldn't feel clean," the woman said.

"I would wash myself with bleach to try and kill any part of him that could have remained on my skin. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror without seeing the parts of me that he helped himself to."

Ms Morrisroe argued Earle should be sentenced to time behind bars and had demonstrated "a failure to accept responsibility" for his actions.

"He is a vehicle for general deterrence," Ms Morrisroe said.

"[The judge] must also think about the message that is being sent to the community if a non-custodial sentence was imposed.

"What kind of message would it send to other young men who also come from very good families with a very good education and a very good background?"

Defence barrister James Sabharwal argued his client had demonstrated remorse through text messages sent to the victim after the rape.

Chief Justice Lucy McCallum is set to sentence Earle on April 28.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: