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Home / World

Groom-to-be Maurice Hawell to learn fate for raping three teenagers during stag do

By Adelaide Lang
news.com.au·
18 Sep, 2024 12:35 AM4 mins to read

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Power under pressure, exploding pagers in Lebanon plus jury to begin deliberations in Phillip Polkinghorne trial.

WARNING: Contains distressing content about sexual assault

A groom will be confronted by his “terrified” victims after he was found guilty of gang-raping three teenagers at an Airbnb during his bucks party weekend in Newcastle.

Maurice Hawell, 30, was celebrating his upcoming wedding with his friend Andrew David, 30, and his younger brother Marius Hawell, 23, in February 2022 when they attacked three women.

The court was told the trio sexually assaulted two 18-year-old women on the Friday night before attacking a 19-year-old woman the following night.

All three were found guilty of engaging in a joint criminal enterprise to sexually assault the women after a weeks-long trial in the NSW District Court earlier this year.

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Maurice will front the NSW District Court on Wednesday for a hearing as he waits to be sentenced for the gang rapes next month.

David and Marius faced a similar hearing on Tuesday, where they heard from two of their victims about the ruinous impact of the sexual assaults.

The 19-year-old victim said she was “terrified to face the world” after she was sexually assaulted by Maurice and David while Marius watched.

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She told the court she was “left feeling vulnerable”, “experienced panic attacks” and was “unable to leave my home alone” in the months that followed.

“I felt I deeply lost myself,” the teen explained.

During the trial, the court heard Maurice had used a fake name when he lured the woman back to the Airbnb with the promise of pre-drinks.

Instead, he led her into a bedroom and asked her for a threesome with him and David, she told the court.

“What? No,” she recounted telling him.

Despite her lack of consent, the 19-year-old said Maurice raped her while Andrew knelt on her shoulders and forced his penis into her mouth.

The court was told Marius entered the room and turned on his phone’s flashlight as Maurice and Andrew took turns sexually assaulting the woman.

I felt I deeply lost myself

Victim statement

The teen said she put her pants on backwards in her haste to leave the apartment afterwards, and she was “sobbing” when she disclosed the assault to a friend.

In her letter to the court, she said she blamed herself and spent countless sleepless nights thinking about what she could have done differently to prevent the “traumatic” gang rape.

One of the two 18-year-old women who was gang raped by the men on the previous night revealed the attack had taken a “massive emotional toll” on every aspect of her life.

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“This event has made me stop trusting the people around me,” she said in a statement read out on Tuesday.

“I was unable to trust any man … it’s unfair I have to regain my trust in people.”

The court was told she and a friend had willingly gone back to the Airbnb after meeting Maurice, David, and Marius at the Cambridge Hotel on the Friday night.

One of the teens recalled Maurice attempting to sexually touch her upper thigh, near her groin, while she was inside the apartment.

“I don’t, like, want that,” she recalled telling the groom-to-be.

As they were retrieving their phones from a bedroom and preparing to leave, the teens said they were pinned to beds and sexually assaulted in a pitch-dark room.

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One of the victims described being raped by a man she couldn’t see while another man knelt on her arms and thrust his penis into her mouth.

At the same time, the other 18-year-old said she was being held down and stripped naked by a “swarm” of men before being sexually assaulted.

Although none of the teens could see their assailants, the jurors determined Andrew, Maurice, and Marius were responsible for the gang rapes.

All three men continue to maintain their innocence, with Maurice and Andrew claiming the sexual activity was consensual while Marius argued he hadn’t engaged in any sex acts during the bucks weekend.

The trio have indicated they will appeal their convictions.

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