Open-home rape, abuse claims as estate agent on trial
Tom Wark |
Open homes were a real estate agent’s preferred location for a string of alleged sexual offences against multiple women, a jury has heard.
Omar Lababidi has pleaded not guilty to 26 charges including rape and sexual touching between 2021 and 2023, with his trial beginning in Campbelltown District Court in Sydney on Tuesday.
Prosecutors allege the 29-year-old pinned three women against the wall and forced one to have oral sex with him three times while he was working at nine different inspections in southwest Sydney.
The agent’s actions against the three complainants showed a pattern of acting on sexual interest while he was working, crown lawyer Alex Brown said in her opening address.
But Lababidi’s barrister Simon Buchen SC told the court his client had a reasonable belief all three women were consenting to the intimate behaviour.
One woman was allegedly forced to perform oral sex on Lababidi at three open homes.
He also allegedly exposed himself to her without her consent.
While Lababidi did not deny he was sexually attracted to the three women and flirted with them, he denied any criminal act took place, Mr Buchen said.
The jury was not adjudicating in a “court of morals,” he said.
He urged jurors to consider whether some of the acts could have even occurred if there was no consent.
“There is a difference between regretting something after the event and not consenting to something during the event,” he said.
On one occasion, Lababidi is alleged to have sexually touched one of the women in the kitchen of a house under inspection.
He had to stop when the owner appeared, the jury heard.
Another time, he is accused of forcing the same woman to touch his crotch until a couple arrived to view the house he was showing.
The court was told Lababidi made lewd comments to the three women.
When one tried to resist his advances, he is alleged to have said “not to worry, no one was looking”.
All three women repeatedly told the real estate agent to stop and none of them showed any interest in engaging in the acts with him, Ms Brown said.
Lababidi has been charged with 21 counts of sexually touching another person without consent, three of sexual intercourse without consent and two of carrying out a sexual act with another without consent.
The trial continues on Wednesday.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
AAP
