{"id":11919,"date":"2025-06-24T22:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T22:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/11919\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T22:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T22:54:09","slug":"canberra-man-jailed-for-raping-customer-in-shopping-centre-art-shop-where-he-worked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/11919\/","title":{"rendered":"Canberra man jailed for raping customer in shopping centre art shop where he worked"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man accused of raping a customer in a Canberra shopping centre art shop where he worked is behind bars after an ACT Supreme Court jury found him guilty within four hours.<\/p>\n

It is the second time Abhishek Timalsina has been tried for the crime, which occurred in the Westfield Belconnen store’s staff room in November 2022.<\/p>\n

The first jury was unable to reach a verdict<\/a>, but yesterday another jury found Timalsina guilty of two counts or rape and four acts of indecency.<\/p>\n

The original case was significant because it was the first test of the ACT’s new affirmative consent laws, which apply a different standard to the evidence<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Consent is now required to be both free and voluntary, and has to be communicated to the other party.<\/p>\n

That means consent can no longer be presumed.<\/p>\n

Victim ‘checked out’ during assault\"A<\/p>\n

The court heard the victim went to the store where Timalsina worked to enquire about a refund. (ABC News: Andrew Kennedy)<\/p>\n

The woman had gone to the shop to enquire about a refund when the pair began talking about her art and his photography.<\/p>\n

The events were not disputed.<\/p>\n

But on Timalsina’s version, the pair were flirting, and the woman had been laughing and smiling when he leaned in and kissed her.<\/p>\n

The court heard Timalsina asked her if she “wanted to do something crazy”.<\/p>\n

He told the court they had been “vibing”, and he thought he had consent and that the woman was enjoying the attention.<\/p>\n

The woman later told a friend that during the incident her brain had “checked out”.<\/p>\n

She admitted she had kissed him back, but as things escalated, she stopped reacting.<\/p>\n

The woman took herself to hospital in the immediate aftermath, to be examined.<\/p>\n

Timalsina’s bail has been revoked, and he was taken away to jail.<\/p>\n

He will be sentenced in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man accused of raping a customer in a Canberra shopping centre art shop where he worked is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12657,4746,12656,1037,4740,12653,4745,12655,12651,12652,728,12649,12654,50,12650,9099,2107,6831,4700,7307,11459],"class_list":{"0":"post-11919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-abhishek-timalsina","9":"tag-act","10":"tag-act-of-indecency","11":"tag-art","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-belconnen","14":"tag-canberra","15":"tag-centre","16":"tag-guilty","17":"tag-jailed","18":"tag-local-news","19":"tag-local-stories","20":"tag-mall","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-rape","23":"tag-room","24":"tag-shopping","25":"tag-staff","26":"tag-store","27":"tag-victim","28":"tag-woman"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114740806524368216","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}