UPDATE: Dave Hanna has been sentenced to six years in jail with a non-parole period of three years.
EARLIER: Former Queensland CFMEU State President Dave Hanna has been found guilty of raping a woman he’d met a bar in 2017 who was too drunk to consent, and also of filming her genitals without permission.
A jury at the District Court of Queensland ruled that the 54-year-old was guilty of rape and one count of recording in breach of privacy over an incident that occurred on March 4th, 2017.
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Hanna was found to have met the victim at Eleven rooftop bar in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley during a night out with friends. Security told the woman to leave the bar after judging her to be too intoxicated. Hanna admitted to the court that he offered to help her get home, however Crown Prosecutors argued that Hanna was taking advantage of the severely intoxicated woman.
In her testimony, the unidentified woman asserted that at one point she fell asleep during the cab ride home.
Upon arriving at her townhouse, Hanna kicked in the front door after the woman could not locate her keys.
Moments before the assault, the victim sent friends messages to an ex-boyfriend and a friend reading “save me” and “please help me.”
Crown Prosecutors asserted that Hanna then forced himself on the barely conscious woman, performing several sex acts. He also took pictures and videos of the woman’s naked body. Both acts Hanna claimed he had done with her permission and consent.
However, prosecutors rubbished those claims, stating any suggestion the sex was consensual was “farcical,” and that it would’ve taken a “nanosecond” to realise she was too intoxicated to consent.
She was essentially helpless and at the accused’s mercy and he simply did the opposite. He treated her in a degrading and humiliating way, acting without her consent.
Hanna had previously pleaded not guilty to all charges. Prior to the incident, he served as the National President of the construction division of the CFMEU, and was a powerful figurehead in the Queensland Labor Party.
