Paula Kata, Seti Moala's Lyneham Motor Inn rape trial hears closings

"I wasn't very interested in having sex with her but she was urging me," Paula Fala Kata, 35, said through an interpreter on Friday.

"She was still too annoying to me and I knew if I didn't have sex with her she will keep urging me, annoying me."

The alleged offender is accused of raping the woman at Lyneham Motor Inn in the early hours of April 3, 2022, with co-accused Seti Palei Moala, 28.

Kata, the court heard on Monday, previously played rugby union for Tonga.

Kata has denied charges of sexual intercourse without consent in company and sexual intercourse without consent.

Moala has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent in company, choking, and two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.

ACT Supreme Court jurors heard it was agreed Kata and the woman met and "hooked up" at Fiction nightclub in Civic before returning to the motel and having consensual sex.

The two men deny "acting together" and raping her in multiple ways later that morning.

During her closing address on Monday, prosecutor Melanie O'Connell said nightclub CCTV footage showed "clear mutual interest" between Kata and the alleged victim.

The offender previously told the court he only approached the woman because she was "making eyes" at him and gesturing for him to speak to her.

"You might think he was trying to downplay his interest in the complainant," Ms O'Connell said.

"He painted a picture that the complainant was the sexual aggressor."

During his cross-examination, Kata said he was not making up his version of events because he had "made an oath on the bible to tell the truth".

In the account presented by Moala, the alleged victim "was the sexual aggressor who made eyes [at him] and lured him into bed" when he came home, Ms O'Connell said.

Among multiple pieces of forensic evidence heard in the trial, Ms O'Connell recounted how a doctor observed red marks on the woman's neck "consistent with an episode of non-fatal strangulation".

The alleged victim also presented with a "cluster of four bruises" on her arm, decreasing in size "like fingertips", which she claims were the result of being restrained.

Moala's defence lawyer, Edward Chen, began his closing address by submitting the alleged victim was unreliable but not necessarily a liar.

"She genuinely, but mistakenly, believes Mr Moala did those things to her and the distress she experienced is clearly real," the lawyer said.

Mr Chen said it was "highly implausible" the woman's friend slept through the alleged offending while in the same motel room before "coincidentally waking up when it came to an end".

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He also told jurors forensic evidence presented throughout the trial was more than enough to cast a reasonable doubt and that no other witnesses in the room, being Moala's friends, saw the alleged sexual assault.

Kata's defence barrister, James Sabharwal, like Mr Chen, asked jurors to be "dispassionate" in their assessment of the evidence presented throughout the trial.

And like Mr Chen, Mr Sabharwal questioned why two other men present in the room at the time would lie by stating they had not witnessed the woman being raped by their friends.

The jury has retired to begin deliberations.

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