Luke Rao: Young Perth doctor tells court he lied to appease alleged rape victim, didn’t feel sorry or guilty

A trainee doctor accused of raping a fellow medical student says he doesn’t feel guilty or sorry for his alleged victim because she had “actively participated” in the sex, which he argues was consensual. On day three of his trial in Perth’s District Court, Luke Rao told the jury that everything he’d said to the young woman during a pretext phone call, which was recorded and set up by police, had been an elaborate lie. Instead of what appeared to be an admission to rape, the 26-year-old claimed that his words during the phone call early last year were simply his attempt to “appease” the complainant. “I didn’t want to ... argue with her, I didn’t think there was anything I could gain by challenging her — I thought it would make it worse,” Mr Rao said on Wednesday, adding that he’d merely wanted to “convey” to the woman that he agreed with her accusation — that he had raped her. “I wanted to convey that ... I’d come around to her viewpoint and I believed what she was saying (that it was rape). “But I didn’t believe it (myself).” During the call from the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, Mr Rao told her that he hadn’t thought their sexual encounter had been rape “at the time”. But that after receiving a letter from her suggesting that it had in fact been non-consensual, he’d realised “it was probably certainly more closer to that (rape) than what I originally thought”. “You were too drunk for it not to be,” he’d added. He also told her that he was “sorry” and had been caught up in his “own guilt”. But when barrister Seamus Rafferty SC asked whether in his mind, Mr Rao had actually been apologising during the call, his client answered “no” — that it wasn’t a genuine apology because he “didn’t have anything to apologise for”. “I did feel bad (about how she was feeling) but I didn’t agree,” he said. “I hadn’t done anything wrong.” When asked why he’d then made those statements, Mr Rao said that if he’d tried to disagree with the woman during the call and say that the sex had been consensual, it would’ve ended in “disaster”. “I thought if I did say the truth that that would make her angry and upset and inflame the situation more,” he said. State prosecutor Rebekah Sleeth told Mr Rao’s thought process made no sense. “So you thought it was better to admit rape than try and communicate with her about your misunderstanding?” she asked. “It’s illogical.” In her evidence on Tuesday, the alleged victim said she hadn’t told Mr Rao “no” or “stop” before or during the alleged offending because she “physically could not”. “I was completely frozen,” she said, adding that during the alleged assault Mr Rao had flipped her onto her stomach, where she lay motionless. Mr Rao disagreed, saying “it felt like every other time that we had sex”. “It was normal ... not like she was stiff or frozen,” he said of the incident which unfolded after a night of boozy celebrations. When the woman says she woke up naked in her bed, she was “quite distressed” and confused and quickly rolled away from Mr Rao. Moments later, she says Mr Rao began touching her, prompting her to say: “I’m stressed, I don’t think we should do this. I think it means something different to you than it does to me.” “He talked for a while about why he was OK with it,” the woman said of the interaction. In his testimony, Mr Rao told the court he and the woman had been kissing and cuddling in the lead-up to the sexual activity, and that he’d believed that her mention of stress had related to her fears of potentially leading him on. “I understood it as her wanting to make sure ... that it wouldn’t mean something more to me,” he said. “I believed she was fully consenting and actively participating,” he said. “She knew what was happening.” The trial continues.