#Perth winery owner guilty of raping worker

A PERTH winery owner has been convicted of raping a 24-year-old Japanese woman while she visited Perth on a working holiday visa.

Chidlow’s Well owner Peter Raymond Costa, 57, went on trial in the District Court of WA this week, charged with three counts of sexual penetration without consent.

Costa, who only paid the woman in meals and lodging when she worked on his property in March 2015, was found guilty after about two-and-a-half hours of jury deliberations on Thursday and will be sentenced on September 11.

During the trial in the District Court, the jury was told the 57-year-old accused kept topping up the woman’s wine glass during dinner with another worker that night while his wife was away.

The woman admits she was so drunk she could only remember fragments of the rest of the night, but says she clearly recalled waking up in her bedroom with Costa on top of her.

She says she struggled and kicked Costa to try to throw him off, but the assault only ended when she called out to her colleague, who ran into the room and found them both semi-naked, and she was crying.

The man gave evidence via videolink from South Korea, testifying he heard her say “No, no, no. Help me” and then she called out his name.

But defence counsel David Rice said during closing submissions on Thursday that her distress “may simply have been second thoughts”.

Mr Rice also questioned whether the lighting was bright enough for the man to see what was happening.

“All he knows is she’s called out to him and appears to be in a distressed state,” Mr Rice said.

But prosecutor Ben Stanwix said the colleague’s evidence was compelling, as was the testimony of a South American friend who brought her husband to rescue the woman from the estate the next morning, and found her sobbing and shaken.

The jury has seen a string of texts sent by the woman to her friend asking for help and saying she’d been raped by her boss.

Mr Stanwix said she was credible witness, admitting peripheral details she couldn’t remember, and would not have made a false complaint as she was reserved and modest about sexual matters.

Source: Winery rape accused ’may have had consent’ | Perth Now