Leading entertainment figure trial: Jury told man was formerly at center of ‘rumors and allegations’

A leading figure in the entertainment industry has previously been at the center of “rumors and allegations” involving women but has consistently denied he has done anything wrong, a High Court jury has been told.

Today a second business partner gave evidence in the High Court trial of the man facing 25 charges related to nine accusers.

The allegations involved allegations of rape, sexual assault and drug use – which sometimes meant the women lost control of their bodies.

On Monday, another business partner testified for the Crown.

The second business partner told the jury they were “shocked” when he and the first business partner were told by a friend of the man who entered a woman’s bedroom, kissed her and held her against on the wall and sexually assaulted her – despite the woman begging him to stop.

A second business partner said the man’s friends told him the incident happened while they were living in a house outside the city.

He was told the friend accidentally walked into a woman’s bedroom, thinking it was a bathroom, only to find a man and a woman in the room.

A woman tells a man’s friend not to leave, but to help her. The friend took the man out of the room and spent the next few hours comforting the woman as she was crying and was “scared” that the man would come back into the room.

A second business partner said he told the man’s friend that he needed to report the incident to police because it was “so serious” and that he himself contacted his lawyer to find out what he should do.

The two business partners later approached the man about the allegations.

The second business partner said the man told them he kissed the woman but she stopped because she felt guilty. The man told colleagues he tried to continue kissing her but she refused. That’s all that happened, the man told his business partner.

The second business partner said he took seriously the woman’s account of events, which the man had previously denied, because of “past rumors and allegations”.

He said this time they felt the evidence was “too strong” because they had learned the information from a friend of the man’s.

Defense barrister Ron Mansfield KC suggested to the second business partner during cross-examination that the charges gave him the opportunity to quickly engineer changes to remove the man and secure his financial interest in the businesses.

In response, the second business partner said he didn’t want to lose a business partner or friend, but he knew it could “blow up” and potentially hurt their business.

The six-week trial was before Judge Lane Harvey and a jury of nine women and three men.

Judge Harvey had earlier ruled that the man’s provisional name withholding would be resolved after the first week of the trial. He ruled today that the interim name ban will continue and will be resolved again at the conclusion of the trial.