The woman who accused West Indies cricketer Chris Gayle of exposing himself has completed her evidence at a defamation trial in Sydney and left the courtroom in tears.
Gayle is suing Fairfax Media over a series of articles published early last year claiming he had exposed himself to a woman working with the team.
Leanne Russell worked as a massage therapist for the West Indies in 2015, and contacted The Age newspaper last year when she was angered by a TV interview in which Mr Gayle told a reporter “Don’t blush baby”.
A series of newspaper reports in The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times revealed her claim the player had lowered his towel in a dressing room at Drummoyne Oval in February 2015 and said “Are you looking for this?”.
Mr Gayle’s barrister Bruce McClintock SC said Ms Russell was trying to smear his client — a claim she vigorously denied.
Ms Russell left the court in tears after a pointed cross examination by Mr McClintock, who questioned her entire recollection of events and at one point used his robes to demonstrate flashing.
Ms Russell told the court West Indies player Dwayne Smith was also in the room behind Gayle’s left shoulder, “about two feet back”.
“[Gayle] said: ‘What are you looking for’. I said: ‘A towel.’ He said ‘Are you looking for this?'”
Ms Russell said Gayle then “moved the towel out and down”. “I saw the top half of Chris’s penis and thereafter shielded my view and left the room.”
The incident was over in under 10 seconds, she told the court. Immediately after the incident she told the team physiotherapist, CJ Clark.
Ms Russell said she then went up into the stands at the oval during the training session. “I was very upset. I was crying up there and I was alone for some time … I was crying uncontrollably. I was crying like a child.” “Jokes of that nature meant nothing to him but upset me greatly.”
Ms Russell described receiving a text message that included the word “sexy” in it from Gayle’s West Indies teammate Dwayne Smith, something Smith agreed during questioning yesterday that he sent. Ms Russell said she did not respond and completed the massage.
Ms Russell said she had known Gayle and the team for 10 years and in the context of the text message she received the day before she feared the players were trying to “gather an attack to either try their luck or intimidate me”.
“I am someone who has forged my career in sport. I’ll never be anywhere near as successful [as I would have been if I was a] bloke. And it made me angry,” she said while crying.
The case continues.