Murderer found not guilty of raping underage girl
Tara Cosoleto |
Convicted murderer Lachlan Young has been found not guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl.
Young, 24, was in a relationship with Hannah McGuire in February 2024 when he allegedly raped the teen at a house party in the Ballarat suburb of Sebastopol.
He murdered Ms McGuire on April 5, three days after the 16-year-old girl made her formal statement to police alleging she had been raped.
Young took both cases to trial but ultimately pleaded guilty to the murder in July 2025 after hearing eight days of evidence.
He maintained his innocence over the rape and chose to testify, telling jurors the girl had made the entire story up.
In his evidence on Friday afternoon, Young repeatedly denied raping the teen in the backyard of the Sebastopol property while her friends slept inside.
He also rejected the allegation he knew she was underage and persisted with the sexual contact anyway.
Young instead said she only disclosed her age after they consensually touched each other and he immediately stopped once he learnt she was 16.
In contrast, the girl claimed Young knew her age before she went to meet him outside and he ignored her when she said she did not want to have sex.
She also described how she sent a series of messages to Young in the weeks after the party, confronting him about cheating.
“How’s ya missus?” the girl asked the Sebastopol man.
“How would she feel about you f****** an underage (girl) and cheating on her?”
The jury was not told Young’s girlfriend at the time was Ms McGuire, nor that he was serving time for murdering her.
The media was also restricted from publishing any information about Young’s murder conviction during the trial.
Young is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence for strangling Ms McGuire, 23, and staging her death as a suicide.
The jurors in the rape trial began their deliberations on Tuesday after hearing two days of evidence.
They returned their not guilty verdict on Thursday afternoon.
Young only looked ahead at the jury foreperson as the verdict was delivered.
He smiled to his lawyer, who told Young that he will see him in the cells, after the judge had left the courtroom
AAP