After a boozy perform in South Melbourne, a smaller group moved on to a different pub. About 2am, a gaggle of stragglers made their strategy to Whittaker’s Abbotsford residence.
Loading
There, Whittaker set about mixing drinks and handing them out. One visitor, 24-year-old Reuben Williams, flopped on the sofa. Witnesses recalled him being visibly drunk, earlier than he fell asleep on the sofa.
A while later, when the opposite friends had left, Williams woke in Whittaker’s mattress. Williams’ garments had been half off, and Whittaker was masturbating him.
Justice of the Peace Timothy Gattuso discovered Whittaker responsible of two fees of “sexual assault”, which he described as “extra opportunistic than predatory”.
“Nonetheless, your ethical culpability for this offending was excessive, and I denounce your conduct,” he advised Whittaker on Friday.
“Every of your victims had been both so drunk that they both handed out or weren’t simply roused and, in your personal obvious gratification, you invaded their privateness and security in essentially the most severe means. You’ve left them with emotions of trauma, embarrassment and disgrace.”
Two days after the incident, Williams bought in contact with Cricket Australia’s human sources workforce and contacted the police.
Information of the sexual offence on Williams reached “Jim” who in 2016 had been a 21-year-old up-and-comer within the cricket world when he was assaulted by Whittaker in strikingly related circumstances.
In a sufferer influence assertion learn to the court docket, Jim advised of attempting for years to fake that nothing of consequence had occurred.
“There have been deep emotions of embarrassment, betrayal of belief and sick anger that I by no means addressed. And it contributed to a downward spiral of melancholy, breakdown in relationships with girlfriends and detachment from work and actuality,” Jim stated.
Loading
“I’ve struggled to keep up wholesome relationships with girlfriends by way of each an incapacity to belief in them or myself, and the emotions concerned in addition to struggling to be intimate. Each of which, earlier than talking out, I needed to make excuses as to why I used to be feeling that means somewhat than telling the reality.”
Whittaker’s authorized workforce sought to color their consumer as having succumbed to the pressures of an unhealthy work tradition.
However barrister Sharn Coombes, for the prosecution, advised Gattuso that Whittaker’s conduct was “predatory”.
“Ordinarily … folks have the appropriate to find out [whether they] will consent to sexual behaviour however, on this case, we’ve got two grownup males [who] had been utterly susceptible, intoxicated [and] asleep. They need to have felt entitled, your honour, to really feel secure within the dwelling of a trusted, revered senior colleague … the offending constitutes an abuse of energy and belief.”
At one level throughout his plea listening to, Whittaker put his head down and sobbed.
Whittaker didn’t cry when he was discovered responsible. As a substitute, he wept when his lawyer noticed that each on-line search of Timothy Whittaker’s identify would produce “article after article” about his sexual assault convictions.
“You received’t discover any articles about his good work or his neighborhood work,” Dann stated.
The court docket was advised Whittaker – who has a prolonged historical past doing volunteer work, together with for St John’s Ambulance and the Nation Fireplace Authority – had misplaced mates and work since he was arrested.
Whittaker has moved again in along with his mother and father and battled persistent melancholy and anxiousness.
On Friday, Gattuso sentenced Whittaker to a 30-month neighborhood corrections order, throughout which he should full 300 hours of unpaid neighborhood service, and full alcohol and psychological well being remedy.
Gattuso stated he was happy that Whittaker was “extremely unlikely to reoffend” and rejected the prosecution’s utility to place him on the intercourse offender’s register.
On the finish of Whittaker’s sentencing listening to, Dann bought to his toes and introduced his consumer supposed to enchantment his conviction. Whittaker maintains his innocence.
Help is out there from the Nationwide Sexual Assault, Home Household Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
The Morning Version e-newsletter is our information to the day’s most vital and fascinating tales, evaluation and insights. Join right here.
