Lions coach's court case underway
NEWS: Lions defence coach Joey Mongalo’s court case got underway in Sydney this week.
Mongalo, 33, is alleged to have indecently assaulted a 26-year-old female staff member at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Coogee, on April 23 this year.
The Sydney Morning Herald, reporting on the court proceedings, says he forced a hotel concierge to touch him while he stuck his finger in her mouth in the building’s stairwell, a court has heard.
The Downing Centre Local Court heard that Mongalo, who was staying with the team at the hotel, approached the woman and asked her where the balcony was.
It’s alleged she took him to a balcony to find it locked, and then took him to try another balcony in the hotel.
Giving evidence, a friend of the woman relayed what the alleged victim told her the morning after the incident.
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“As they went into the stairwell she said that he started saying strange things about Anzac Day coming up,” the friend said.
The woman then allegedly said to Mongalo, “why are you staring at me?”
“He said something like ‘I want you’,” the friend said in evidence.
Mongalo is accused of then grabbing the woman’s hand and putting it on his penis, then putting a finger from his free hand into her mouth.
His barrister, Anthony Bellanto, told magistrate Kate Thompson that his client was accused of placing the woman’s hand on his “private area, which was erect and outside his clothing.”
It’s alleged the woman then pulled away and said she had to go back to work, leaving Mongalo in the fifth-floor stairwell.
The friend said she asked the woman if she was going to tell her employers, to which she allegedly replied, “I don’t know because he’s part of the football team. They stay at the hotel all the time, they’re a big client.”
The court heard the woman later found out who Mongalo was via an image from the Internet.
The friend said the woman appeared tired as she told her what had allegedly unfolded.
“She said to me that when she came home that she was quite upset about it,” she said.
“She said that she hadn’t slept very well and she looked like she hadn’t slept very well.”
The woman’s friend said the alleged victim became anxious and paranoid following the incident and didn’t want to leave the house.
CCTV footage played to the court showed Mongalo approach the woman at the counter where she was working on two occasions, firstly to hand her a piece of paper described by Bellanto as a “McDonald’s wrapper”.
The court heard she later gave him a piece of paper with an address and phone number on it.
Under cross-examination, NSW Police Detective Senior Constable Kim Flaskis said the woman told her the phone number was fake.
Bellanto said the woman appeared to be performing her normal duties following the incident, as well as “laughing and joking” with a colleague.
At one point the woman allegedly said to a colleague “all men are f—ing pigs” and “men look at you like a piece of meat”.
The hearing continues.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
