Danushka Gunathilaka cleared of date rape

The 32-year-old batsman was accused of “stealing” during sex with a 29-year-old woman without her knowledge in her eastern suburbs home on November 2, 2022. He pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent and faced a four-day trial before Judge Sarah Huggett in Downing Centre District Court

The trial heard Gunathilaka, also known as Danny, and the woman matched on Tinder on October 29 and talked over Instagram and WhatsApp, including via video calls.

“The mood as captured by those videos seemed relaxed, happy and playful,” the judge said.

The woman, who testified over two days, alleged Gunathilaka kissed her forcefully and slapped her buttocks on the ferry to her house, and “ambushed” her by pushing her back on the lounge. She accepted under cross-examination she had said “let’s go to my room” and lit candles “to create a mood”.

She said she noticed a condom on her bedroom floor within three to five seconds of the sex ending. The woman alleged Gunathilaka threw it there, but did not see him do it.

Gunathilaka’s barrister Murugan Thangaraj, SC, said there was “no window” for Gunathilaka to have removed the condom during sex, and the woman had described it as “continuous sexual activity”.

Gunathilaka was arrested in the early hours of November 6 in the Hyatt Regency Hotel as the Sri Lanka team left for the airport. He let police search his hotel room, where they found a Burberry satchel bag containing two wrapped condoms.

Gunathilaka participated in a two-and-a-half hour recorded interview. Asked by police “At any point, did you put your penis into her without a condom on?” Gunathilaka replied, “No, no, no.”

“I never said ‘I want to do it without condoms’, and we did it with condoms,” Gunathilaka said.

“There is no reason at all to reject or disbelieve what he said in that interview,” Huggett said.

The judge said: “In my view, the complaint evidence undermines rather than supports the complainant.”

Gunathilaka was suspended from cricket following his arrest. He made his international debut in 2015 and has represented Sri Lanka in more than 100 matches including eight Tests. He travelled to Australia for the T20 World Cup but was ruled out with a hamstring tear after playing one match.