Alleged rapist Theodoros Tsalkos, who was jailed for the sexual assault of two teenage girls nearly 40 years ago in Victoria’s St Kilda, has been released, forcing a retrial.
The 62-year-old was sentenced in 2023 to a non-parole period of eight years and two months in jail after a jury found him guilty of raping and kidnapping two teenage sex workers, aged 15 and 16, while pretending to be a policeman on May 7, 1987. Mr Tsalkos was 25 years old at the time.
On Thursday, December 19, Mr Tsalkos was released on bail from prison after the Victorian Court of Appeals set aside his convictions and ordered a retrial.
Mr Tsalkos successfully argued that a miscarriage of justice occurred during the trial when prosecutors told the jury they could treat one of the alleged victim’s mothers account of her daughter’s distressed state in hospital as “independent evidence” of the alleged incident.
Defence lawyers argued that the alleged victim’s distress could have been caused by her lying to her mother and the police about being a sex worker.
Mr Tsalkos was arrested and charged in 2020. The case sat dormant for 25 years until forensic experts began using advanced technology to analyse hundreds of frozen DNA samples linked to cold cases. Swabs taken from the girls at the time were a match to Mr Tsalkos.
In 2022, Mr Tsalkos faced a seven-day trial, having pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape, two counts of kidnapping and four counts of gross indecency with a person under the age of 16.
One of the victims has since died of a rare illness.
Mr Tsalkos will next appear before the County Court in February 2025.
Source: The Herald Sun.
