A judge has again taken aim at Mooseheads, labelling the Civic nightclub "a magnet for crime" as he locked a man up for raping a university student on its dancefloor in "the most brazen of circumstances".
Justice Michael Elkaim, a frequent critic of the venue he has branded "an unseemly establishment", spoke so much about the place on Wednesday he had to remind his audience he was "not sentencing Mooseheads".
"It is for other authorities to take appropriate action," he said.
The ACT Supreme Court judge was in fact sentencing rapist Parker Jae Robert Bellette, who was condemned to Christmas in custody.
Justice Elkaim sentenced Bellette to 20 months in jail but ordered that he be released in three months, with the balance of the term to be suspended.
Bellette, 29, had stood trial in October after pleading not guilty to two counts of engaging in sexual intercourse without consent.
The father of two instead pleaded guilty to back-up indecent assault charges, admitting he had stuck his hand up his unsuspecting victim's skirt as she danced with another man at Mooseheads.
The landscaper, who was subsequently captured on CCTV placing his fingers under a friend's nose, denied claims he had sexually penetrated the young woman during the March 2021 incident.
A jury ultimately found he had, convicting him on one rape charge but acquitting him of the other.
As he detailed the incident during sentencing on Wednesday, Justice Elkaim noted he had, "on many occasions, commented on how [Mooseheads] is a magnet for crime".
The judge said a search of the court's sentencing database demonstrated the nightclub's regular association with, in particular, sexual assaults.
He observed that "drunk and drugged" men, who should be discouraged from preying on vulnerable women, were allowed to "wander through its premises, no doubt because of the alcohol they are purchasing from the establishment".
Bellette was both "drunk and drugged" on the night of his offending, having taken cocaine and consumed about 20 alcoholic drinks before, as Justice Elkaim put it, "he acted so stupidly".
The judge said the offender had, at the time in question, "turned to alcohol to defeat loneliness" following the breakdown of his relationship with the mother of his daughters.
The victim had, meanwhile, been starting to finally enjoy her college experience after having the first year of her studies at the Australian National University curtailed by COVID-19 restrictions.
In a victim impact statement read to the court on Tuesday, she described the stark contrast between the outgoing person she had been before the rape and the distrustful, introverted individual it had turned her into.
The young woman stated, on many occasions, her wish that Bellette be sent to prison.
She went as far as saying her "faith in humanity" would be restored when she saw him locked up.
Bellette's barrister, Margaret Jones SC, advocated for a different outcome, pushing instead for an intensive correction order and highlighting the negative impact the 29-year-old's incarceration would have on his kids.
Justice Elkaim said on Wednesday he had "given serious consideration" to such a sentence, describing Bellette's personal circumstances as "real and compelling".
However, he ultimately found Bellette's conduct called for full-time imprisonment because of both its very nature and the "strong need" to deter others from similar offending.
The public violation of an innocent woman was, he said, a crime against the whole community.
"The offence was committed in the most brazen of circumstances," Justice Elkaim said, commenting on how humiliating it must have been for the victim.
Under the terms of his mostly suspended sentence, Bellette will be released from jail in late February 2023 if he signs an 18-month good behaviour order.
The rapist smiled and nodded at his parents, who adopted him from South Korea when he was a baby, as he was taken into custody.
