Alexander Matters faces trial in Supreme Court, accused of rape in ANU dorm room

Alexander Louis Christopher Matters faced the third day of a jury trial in the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday.

He is accused of raping a woman and committing an indecent act on her while in a college dorm room in May 2021, after the pair first had consensual sex the previous month.

Matters, aged in his early 20s, has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent and committing an act of indecency without consent.

Matters worked as an electorate officer for a Labor MP and was an Australian National University law student at the time in question.

The court previously heard the woman and Matters were not in a "boyfriend and girlfriend" relationship but would "hook up".

The prosecution alleges that, on the night in question, the woman started to have consensual sex with Matters before asking him repeatedly to stop when he became "very rough" and she felt pain.

Matters is accused of continuing having sex with her and then non-consensually ejaculating on her chest. This is the subject of the act of indecency charge.

The woman reported the alleged rape in September 2021 after seeing news articles stating Matters had been accused of a different sexual assault, over which charges have since been dropped.

In her closing address, prosecutor Soraya Saikal-Skea told the jury there were "three key parts" to the evidence against Matters.

She said these were "blood, pain and messages".

"The blood and the pain tell a story of what occurred on that night," Ms Saikal-Skea told the jury.

Ms Saikal-Skea claimed the alleged victim's evidence, that she was bleeding during sex and in the days afterwards, was supported by an "apparent blood stain" on a blanket which was on the bed at the time.

The prosecutor told the jury Facebook messages from the woman to Matters saying she was "sore" and "I think you were too rough" also supported the accusations.

"Those messages and the pain and the blood, I would suggest to you, are consistent that she did not consent to rough forceful sex on that night," Ms Saikal-Skea said.

Ms Saikal-Skea claimed the alleged victim's evidence in court on Tuesday, when the woman stated she had "begrudgingly" said yes to the indecent act, did not mean it was consensual.

"The consent that was given was not in fact consent at all because it was not freely and voluntarily given," Ms Saikal-Skea said.

Defence barrister Steven Whybrow SC started to give his closing address to the jury on Wednesday.

He told the jury there was no medical evidence to support to rape claim, and the woman's evidence while on the stand had been "inconsistent".

"It was clear from a very, very early stage in [the alleged victim's] evidence that what she was suggesting was totally untenable," Mr Whybrow said.

"Her credibility was shredded.

"It was apparent her evidence was untenable even at this stage."

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Mr Whybrow said the woman had "shown herself to be unreliable, unresponsive" and claimed she had "lied".

"These allegations are, as we've seen in this case, so easy to make," he said.

Mr Whybrow is set to finish his closing address on Thursday.

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