PERTH, Australia (AP) — Lawyers were making closing statements Tuesday in the Australian trial of a British YouTuber and rapper known as Yung Filly on charges that he raped and choked a fan following a music performance two years ago.
The 30-year-old entertainer, whose real name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos, had pleaded not guilty in the District Court of Western Australia state to six charges of rape, three charges of assault occasioning bodily harm and one count of choking in a Perth hotel room in September 2024.
The accuser cannot legally be named. She was 20 at the time.
The jury is expected to begin considering their verdicts Wednesday after defense and prosecution lawyers finish their closing statements.
Barrientos testified Monday that he did not slap or choke the woman, but he agreed to the allegation that he bit her multiple times.
“In England we would call it a love bite,” Barrientos told the court.
The performer denied the woman repeatedly told him to stop and told him he was hurting her.
“There was kissing in between; I would give her a love bite and then kiss her,” Barrientos said from the witness box. “I don’t recall any blood.”
Photos of the woman with bruising and bite marks on her face and neck were shown to the court.
Barrientos met the woman at a Perth nightclub after his performance.
“The vibes were good and she had a really good energy about her,” he said.
Prosecutors previously said the woman initially agreed to have sex with Barrientos, but withdrew her consent when she started to fear for her safety.
Barrientos agreed that a security guard took the woman’s phone before she entered the hotel room.
But he denied prosecutor Danielle Clarke’s accusation that the phone was removed to trap the woman.
“It is standard practice for someone in the limelight to protect privacy,” Barrientos said.
The Colombian-born entertainer, who has more than 1.8 million followers on YouTube, had been touring Australia and had performed in Sydney and Melbourne before he encountered the woman. He was in the east coast city of Brisbane where the tour was to end when he was arrested several days later.
