Kurtley Beale’s lawyer says rape accuser had ‘obvious’ motives to lie and trial was doomed to failure

It took the jury just two hours to return their verdict, rejecting the woman’s account that Beale forced her to perform oral sex in a toilet cubicle at Bondi’s Beach Road Hotel in December 2022.

A rape case against rugby star Kurtley Beale was completely contradicted by CCTV footage from the night and should never have been pursued, his lawyers have argued.

Beale is pursuing court costs after being found not guilty in February of one count of sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of sexual touching.

A rape case against rugby star Kurtley Beale was completely contradicted by CCTV footage from the night and should never have been pursued, his lawyers have argued.

Beale is pursuing court costs after being found not guilty in February of one count of sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of sexual touching.

Beale’s lawyer, Margaret Cuneen (pictured), said the accuser should never have gone ahead with the trial and had obvious reasons to lie.

The woman’s story did not match CCTV footage which would have been clear to prosecuting authorities “from the start”, Beale’s barrister, Margaret Cunneen SC, told a court hearing on Friday. Downing Center district in Sydney.

“One only has to read this brief and see the CCTV to say that this case is doomed to fail,” she told the court.

“It’s not just a word-for-word thing.”

The circumstances in which the woman was also arguing at the time with her fiancé gave her a “clear, obvious, pressing and immediate” motivation to lie to save her relationship, Ms Cunneen argued.

“His relationship had reached a very worrying point. According to the fiancé, it was the lowest point of the relationship,” she said.

Text messages detailing an argument between the two men demonstrated that the only way for the woman to “tell” the story and win over her fiancé was to press charges against Beale, Ms. Cunneen argued.

“It works because he goes from completely uninterested in what she says to sympathetic,” she said.

Beale’s rugby career was suspended for the duration of the trial before he was found not guilty.

Beale made his return to the sport for Randwick in the Australian Club Rugby Championship.

Crown prosecutor Philip Hogan told the court the “confessions” Beale made in a recorded phone call with the woman were enough to warrant the case continuing.

“There is another, even more fundamental way why this is not a case of word for word,” he told the court.

During the call, Beale admits to potentially misinterpreting the situation and says, “I was super upset, but no apologies for that.”

“I thought for some reason it was on,” Beale also said on the call.

Mr Hogan told the court the Crown would be entitled to treat Beale’s comments as an admission.

In the defense case, the woman and Beale had sex in a stall in the men’s restroom, but the woman was consenting.

In filing her complaint, the woman initially claimed that Beale followed her into the bathroom, when CCTV footage showed Beale entering first, followed by the woman.

“Different people were informed or understood from what she said that Mr. Beale followed her into the bathroom,” Ms. Cunneen said.

‘This was not the case.’

Ms Cunneen also pointed to footage filmed just after the couple left the bathroom, in which the woman did not appear to be in distress around Beale.

“We know that there was no apparent discomfort between the complainant and Mr Beale and that there was even physical kissing and hugging,” Ms Cunneen said.

Beale has been able to return to first grade football, making his Super Rugby debut for the Western Force this week

The allegations and trial may have closed the door on Beale returning to the Wallabies due to his age.

Judge Graham Turnbull said given today’s social awareness of variations in how people respond to trauma, the prosecution could have relied on his reaction afterwards to have been a “neutral factor”.

“People react in different ways and just because someone isn’t yelling, for example, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” he said.

Ms Cunneen said in the footage the woman appeared “extremely warm and affectionate” in circumstances where she claims Beale’s last words after raping her were to “fuck off”.

“So far I have not heard of a rape myth where victims can later be seen kissing their attacker,” she said.

A hearing has been set for June 14 for a decision on costs.

The former Wallabies playmaker has signed a short-term deal with the Western Force until the end of the Super Rugby Pacific season, after his trial sidelined him for 14 months until which he turns up for in mid-March for Sydney club Randwick.

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