North Melbourne player Majak Daw will stand trial after pleading not guilty to raping a teenage girl in 2007.
The alleged female victim, who was 16 at the time, told the Melbourne court that she was held down and silenced by Daw after telling him “no” and screaming “get off me”.
The incident occurred by a creek during a party in Altona Meadows in Melbourne’s west before Daw had begun his professional AFL career.
“I knew I was not going to be able to stop him,” the woman said in her statement to police, as described in court documents reported by the AAP on Tuesday.
A witness found the “hysterical” victim, unable to move or talk directly after the incident, lying in nearby parkland.
“I do find the evidence is of sufficient weight to support a conviction to all three charges,” magistrate Donna Bakos said.
The 23-year-old Daw is on bail and will attend a directions hearing on Wednesday.
The alleged victim did not pursue legal action at the time “as I felt I couldn’t have dealt with it, I was scared and just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen”, until reviving the matter with police earlier this year.
“For a long time I blamed myself for what happened as I shouldn’t have walked away with someone that I didn’t really know and my parents always told me that,” the alleged victim, unnamed for legal reasons, said.
The Kangaroos made Daw a round six draft pick in the 2010 National Draft. He has managed 14 AFL appearances for the club over the last two seasons.
A North Melbourne spokesperson confirmed to the ABC on Tuesday that the club would continue to stick by the AFL’s first Sudanese-born player.
Photo: Scott Barbour/Getty Images.
