A concreter accused of raping a woman on a dirt track in Canberra's north has been found guilty and locked up.
Salvatore David Incandela, 41, bowed his head and began breathing heavily in the ACT Supreme Court on Tuesday after a jury forewoman declared him guilty of sexual intercourse without consent.
The jury of 10 men and two women had deliberated for about one-and-a-half days, having retired last Friday.
When Incandela's trial began on Monday last week, Crown prosecutor Trent Hickey alleged the concreter had raped the victim in Spence in November 2020.
He said the victim had, earlier on the day in question, been at the Calwell house of a man she had met through the Zoosk online dating website.
The date did not go well and one of this man's friends, Incandela, said he would drive the woman to her place in suburban Belconnen because he was going that way.
En route, Mr Hickey said, Incandela stopped his car on the dirt track in Spence and committed the offence.
The prosecutor told the jury the rape had injured the victim, leaving her with a laceration and bruising.
Later in the trial, the woman's daughter gave evidence that the victim had "looked completely out of it" after Incandela dropped her off at their home.
Incandela was arrested about three weeks after the incident and told police several lies during an interview.
He initially denied having met the victim, having had her in his car and having been to Spence for at least 10 years.
But once investigators played him videos taken by a man whose property backed onto the dirt track, showing his car there, Incandela changed his tune.
The 41-year-old began, at this point, to give a version of events in which the victim had initiated a sexual encounter that did not involve any intercourse.
He claimed he had been unable to achieve an erection and that, because the woman was "violently" rubbing his genitals, his penis "was scared and it ran away".
During closing submissions, defence barrister Travis Jackson said there had been a lot of "contradictory" evidence and jurors should acquit Incandela.
But Mr Hickey said "the only reasonable conclusion" to be drawn from the evidence, including a video that showed Incandela "vigorously thrusting", was that the 41-year-old was guilty.
The jury ultimately returned the guilty verdict just after 10am on Tuesday.
ACT deputy director of public prosecutions Anthony Williamson asked Chief Justice Lucy McCallum to revoke Incandela's bail in light of the decision.
Mr Williamson noted the presumption of innocence no longer operated in the 41-year-old's case and said a stint behind bars was "highly likely" to be imposed.
Mr Jackson applied for Incandela's bail to continue, telling the court the concreter had been living in Queensland for more than a year with no breaches.
He said Incandela was running a crew of six people at work and living with his sister and her teenage sons.
Chief Justice McCallum ultimately remanded Incandela in custody, noting the presumption in favour of bail had been removed as a result of him being found guilty of an indictable offence.
The judge accepted that Incandela did not seem to have breached bail, that he had stable accommodation and employment, and that he had no significant previous convictions on his record.
But she said there was "no particular personal need for him to be at liberty" between now and the date of his sentencing on June 3.
Incandela, wearing bright blue shoes, therefore trod a path to the court cells in the company of prison guards.
