Versions of events in Ivan Kovacic indecency case 'poles apart', court told

Magistrate Louise Taylor should be asking "what, really, was going on here?", lawyer Tim Sharman said during closing submissions in the matter of Ivan Bruno Kovacic on Thursday.

Mr Kovacic, 52, has been facing a hearing in the ACT Magistrates Court for more than a month after denying a charge alleging he committed an act of indecency without consent.

He is accused of forcing a woman's hand onto his genitals and trying to pull her shorts down against her will while she was trying to help clean blood off him.

Mr Kovacic had been briefly knocked unconscious moments earlier by one of the woman's friends after a November 2019 gathering at his Civic apartment turned nasty.

As the case drew to a close on Thursday, Mr Sharman said there were "discernible differences" in the versions of events given by the three people who were in the apartment with Mr Kovacic prior to the knockout punch.

He sought to cast doubt on their credibility, saying their evidence "just doesn't fit".

Mr Sharman also said some claims, like Mr Kovacic having allegedly racially abused and touched the genitals of the man who knocked him unconscious, had not been made when police first spoke to those who were present.

He previously suggested to this man that these allegations had been fabricated to give him an excuse for having punched the off-duty police officer, who was left with a black eye.

The man denied this and, on Thursday, Mr Sharman also pointed to the fact the witnesses were intoxicated at the time in question as he challenged the accuracy of their evidence.

He added "there was lots of blood" coming from his client after Mr Kovacic was knocked out, yet none was found on the alleged victim or her clothes.

"I would've expected that to be there," Mr Sharman told the court.

Ms Taylor remarked there had been evidence "there was so much of it that [the alleged victim] was wiping it from all over [Mr Kovacic's] body".

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But prosecutor Katrina Marson, in her closing address, said the lack of blood on the alleged victim could be explained.

She said photos taken of the police officer did not seem to show any blood on his hands, with the evidence seeming to reveal it was on his face, chest and back.

Ms Marson said it would be "surprising" if Mr Kovacic had been "drenched from head to toe" in blood, and it may have been that the alleged victim only came into contact with the lower half of his body.

The prosecutor also sought to dispel doubts about the credibility of the alleged victim and the other people who were in the apartment.

She said they had given evidence consistent with the woman having been indecently assaulted by Mr Kovacic.

Ms Marson added if they had for some reason "banded together" with "full creative licence" to concoct a story, it would be "curious" for them to come up with a scenario where an act of indecency occurred after everyone else had left the apartment and the alleged victim was alone there with a wounded Mr Kovacic.

"In my submission, it's not plausible that they would make this up," she told the court.

Ms Taylor has reserved her verdict, which she plans to deliver on December 15.

Police have previously said Mr Kovacic was suspended from duty after he was charged.

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