Chidi Okwechime stands trial in ACT Supreme Court over alleged Coombs rape

Chidi Chike Okwechime, 34, faced the ACT Supreme Court for the start of his jury trial on Tuesday after pleading not guilty to four counts of sexual intercourse without consent and one charge of choking.

In a police interview played to the court, Okwechime's alleged victim said she had met a group of men "covered in tattoos" at Kokomo's one night in May 2021.

She said she dropped her phone in a toilet before accompanying members of the group, including Okwechime, to the nearby Fiction nightclub.

The woman told police she later went with Okwechime, one of his friends and another woman to the friend's home in Coombs after being told there was a party there and she could charge her phone.

But she said there was no party and she was left alone on a lounge with Okwechime after the other two people went into a bedroom.

The woman told investigators Okwechime, "a deranged animal", started kissing and sexually assaulting her on the lounge as she protested.

She said she eventually ended up in another room after Okwechime carried or dragged her there against her will.

In the other room, the woman told police, "he ripped off all my clothes" and continued the "very animalistic" attack despite verbal protests and physical resistance.

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"I can't even begin to tell you how many times I said, 'Stop, get off me. I don't want to do this. I want to go home'," the alleged victim said in the interview.

"I was so clear about it."

The woman, who cried at different stages of the interview, told police Okwechime did not take kindly to being told to stop.

"He said something like, 'I hate it when you say that. Stop saying that'," she said.

She alleged that Okwechime then choked her for about 15 seconds, during which time she told him "I can't breathe" or "you're killing me".

"It kind of felt like he was in a fit of rage," the woman said.

She said Okwechime eventually "got scared" and stopped as she "bawled [her] eyes out", so she left and screamed at the 34-year-old to "get the f--- away from me" as she went.

The woman said she sought help from a nearby townhouse resident, who called police.

In her opening address, a Crown prosecutor told the jury Okwechime had four types of non-consensual sexual intercourse with the woman during the incident.

She added that, based on the alleged victim's version of events, there was "no way" the choking could have been lawful because the woman said it happened "at the end of a violent sexual assault".

In his opening statement, defence barrister Steven Whybrow told jurors he would suggest to the alleged victim that there had been some consensual sexual activity.

Mr Whybrow said it was Okwechime's position that other parts of what was alleged, including the choking, had never occurred.

"The central issue is the credibility and reliability of [the complainant]," he said.

Mr Whybrow said the woman had taken MDMA and cocaine on the night in question, with tests conducted after the alleged rape also revealing Valium in her blood.

He urged the jury to scrutinise what the woman said in her evidence and think about whether it made sense.

Mr Whybrow also said it would be important to consider whether the description of "an animalistic, violent sexual assault" was consistent with what Okwechime's friend and the other woman at the Coombs home would say about what they had heard.

The trial, before the jury and Acting Justice Stephen Norrish, is expected to take about seven days.

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