Thomas Nicol: Today Show Producer not guilty of rape

WARNING: Graphic

Former Today show producer Thomas Nicol has been found not guilty of raping a woman following a night out in Sydney in 2021.

During the trial the court was told Mr Nicol, 33, and the woman had been drinking and doing cocaine together and afterwards had returned to his home in Bondi.

Prosecutors alleged the woman fell asleep on Mr Nicol’s bed and woke to find him in the process of having sex with her before he inserted his penis into her vagina.

The jury found Mr Nicol not guilty of engaging in sexual intercourse without consent with the woman.

Lawyers for Mr Nicol argued the pair had kissed “passionately” in the car ride home that escalated to mutual consensual sexual activity.

However, Mr Nicol claimed he had not entered the woman with his penis, an essential element in securing a conviction to the charge.

Witnesses who saw the pair together on the night of the alleged offence described them both as being intoxicated.

The court was told they visited a friend’s apartment in North Sydney, where the complainant vomited and “passed out” on the couch due to her level of intoxication.

Mobile phone footage was shown to the court of Mr Nicol dancing with the friend while the complainant lay on the couch with her eyes closed.

During the evening, the complainant misplaced her phone in a rideshare vehicle and did not have it returned to her until the next day.

The complainant told the court that she couldn’t remember leaving the North Sydney unit with Mr Nicol and travelling back to his Bondi house.

The next day the complainant claimed to friends she believed Mr Nicol had raped her and went to the Royal North Shore hospital for forensic testing.

Mr Nicol’s DNA was detected on the woman’s chest, in her hair and in her mouth.

Traces of semen were located on the woman’s upper torso, where she alleged Mr Nicol had ejaculated on her before wiping it off with something that felt like a baby wipe.

Defence lawyer Phillip Boulten suggested the DNA evidence found on the complainant was only a very small amount and might have come from Mr Nicol’s doona.

In text messages between the pair on the day after the incident, she confronted Mr Nicol with what she thought had happened, which he denied.

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