Murder-rape charges after balcony plunge
Sydney police have lodged a horrific litany of charges against a man accused over the death of a Chinese exchange student, who plunged naked from a balcony with her boyfriend after a knife-wielding intruder forced his way into their flat.
Brendan David Dennison, 26, has been charged with raping the 18-year-old woman from Sichuan province three times and raping her 19-year-old Korean boyfriend twice. Two friends of the couple were also in the flat.
Dennison is also accused of forcing all four Asian students, who studied at a language institute to help prepare them for university in Australia, to perform sexual acts on each other and on him during an hour-long ordeal in the suburban Waterloo flat on Sunday afternoon.
Dennison refused to leave his jail cell to make his scheduled court appearance yesterday. He was refused bail.
In total, Dennison faces 21 charges, including murder, grievous bodily harm, incitement to commit acts of indecency and aggravated sexual assault and robbery.
The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported that Magistrate Allan Moore had ordered DNA samples be taken from Dennison, and had remanded him in custody until December 11.
The Herald quoted lawyer Daniel Sheen, acting for the dead woman's family, as saying that her mother had arrived in Sydney yesterday morning. He said the mother was a businesswoman from the earthquake devastated town of Jiangyou .
'She's lost her home, her business and now she's lost her only child,' Mr Sheen was quoted as saying.
The mother later laid flowers at the crime scene, local media reported. The woman's boyfriend, who was also naked when he plunged three storeys from the flat, was seriously injured. He reportedly suffered two broken legs, a broken pelvis and broken spine.
Dennison was arrested in an inner-city suburb on Wednesday night after a massive manhunt.
