Barrister Travis Jackson urges ACT Supreme Court jurors to put themselves in shoes of alleged rapist Salvatore Incandela

An ACT Supreme Court jury retired on Friday to deliberate in the trial of concreter Salvatore David Incandela, who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent.

Mr Incandela, 41, is accused of stopping his car on a dirt track in November 2020 and sexually assaulting the woman, who had met one of his friends through a dating website.

The court has heard he was giving the woman a lift from his friend's Calwell home to her place, in suburban Belconnen, when the incident is alleged to have occurred in Spence.

Crown prosecutor Trent Hickey on Thursday urged the jury to find Mr Incandela guilty, saying such a verdict was "the only reasonable conclusion" to be drawn from the evidence that had been presented.

But defence barrister Travis Jackson countered on Friday with an argument that jurors should acquit Mr Incandela because there had been a lot of "contradictory" evidence.

He said this should leave the 10 men and two women with doubts that could only lead to a verdict of not guilty.

Mr Jackson conceded some of what Mr Incandela had told police during a recorded interview in December 2020 had been false.

Mr Hickey has previously told the jury Mr Incandela lied about things that included whether he had met the alleged victim or been to Spence on the day in question, before changing aspects of his story.

But while Mr Hickey claimed these were lies told as a result of "consciousness of guilt", Mr Jackson urged jurors to put themselves in Mr Incandela's shoes.

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The defence barrister said his client would have been "shocked" to find himself in a police station, where he was being confronted with a serious allegation.

Mr Jackson told the jury that by the end of the police interview, Mr Incandela "did his best in a difficult situation" and gave a version of events in which the alleged victim had initiated a sexual encounter that did not involve any intercourse.

He added that while jurors might find some of what the accused told investigators "unsatisfactory", the alleged victim's evidence was also open to criticism.

Mr Jackson said bruising on the woman's body was not consistent with the narrative she had given, while a laceration the Crown attributes to the alleged rape might have been caused in "other ways".

The jury retired on Friday afternoon and did not reach a verdict by the end of the day. Its members will therefore return to continue deliberations this coming Monday.

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