A ‘high-profile Sydney man’ cleared of rape can finally be named after a court lifted an order suppressing his identity which had been in place for the past four years.
Street artist Anthony Lister was found not guilty of raping two women and indecently assaulting a third, while a jury was unable to reach verdicts on allegations involving two others.
The 44-year-old was tried in Downing Centre District Court on nine charges related to alleged incidents between 2014 and 2017, reported the ABC.
Lister pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual intercourse without consent as well as one count each of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, indecent assault and threatening to distribute an intimate image.
A non-publication order preventing Lister being identified in relation to the charges was first made by a magistrate in 2020 after he received death threats.
Lister, who has been described as ‘Australia’s Banksy’, faced a six-week trial which began in August and ran until late October but the suppression order was only lifted on Thursday.
Four of the women Lister was alleged to have assaulted were aged 19-21, while the fifth was 29.
One claimed she was tattooed without her consent and raped on a different occasion.
Anthony Lister was found not guilty of raping two women and indecently assaulting a third. A jury was unable to reach verdicts on allegations involving two other women
The renowned street artist pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual intercourse without consent as well as one count each of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, indecent assault and threatening to distribute an intimate image
Lister was ultimately found not guilty of four charges: two of sexual intercourse without consent, one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and one of indecent assault.
He will be tried again next year on the five remaining charges, which include three counts of rape involving two women.
Judge John Pickering lifted the non-publication order on Lister’s name after applications by media outlets.
Lister was cleared of an allegation he raped a woman while she posed for him in 2017.
He was also cleared of touching another woman’s breasts during a drug-fueled night of making art in 2015.
Barrister David Scully SC had told the jury the complainants admired Lister because of his fame in the street art world and that any sexual activity was consensual.
Judge Pickering rejected a submission put by Lister’s defence that identifying him would influence potential jurors.
‘That seems so unlikely for lots of reasons, one of them being – with the greatest respect to Anthony Lister – he is not that incredibly famous within this city,’ he said.
‘It’s difficult for me to see what is so significant about this trial that an order needs to be made.’
Judge Pickering went as far as saying it was ‘kind of embarrassing’ to read media reports of Lister’s trial refer to him as a ‘high-profile Sydney man’.
He also rejected defence submissions that Lister had previously received online threats and had his address published, stating the artist could take himself off social media.
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