A Sydney glamour photographer has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting an 18-year-old aspiring model from country Victoria.
Phillip Lopes, 45, pleaded guilty in the Melbourne County Court to two counts of indecent assault against the teenager, who responded to his Instagram call-out for promotional models in the Goulburn Valley in 2013.
![Phillip Lopes outside court on Monday.](/web/20161212060839im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/9/9/h/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gt998q.png/1481518600753.jpg)
Lopes was working as a car salesman in Shepparton at the time, but was also running a photography business from his home.
The teenager and her friend responded to an advertisement asking for women to dress up as "Santa's little helpers" at a local pub. They met Lopes at the Parklake Hotel, along with three other women, in November 2013.
Lopes told the women he was conducting "tasteful" art photography and that he hated provocative nude photos and "spread legs", prosecutor Nicholas Batten told the court.
The women were photographed at a second meeting at the Shepparton Showgrounds, where they wore leather pants and Santa hats.
Lopes asked the victim to attend a further photo shoot alone at his home in Dunlop Street on Boxing Day, where she was asked to put on a negligee and G-string.
Mr Batten said the young woman felt pressured to take her clothes off, before Lopes spread her legs, took photos of her genitals and touched the outside of her vagina. He also rubbed her breasts with an ice cube and sucked one of her nipples, before licking her genitals, Mr Batten told the court.
"We have one rule here: what happens in the photo shoot stays in the photo shoot," Lopes allegedly told her.
The teenager – who the court heard was "frozen in shock" – told police Lopes apologised to her, saying it was "unprofessional" and asked her again not to tell anyone.
She broke down in her car outside Lopes' house, before she rang a friend and told her friend's mother. She reported to the Shepparton sexual offences and child abuse investigation team. Lopes' DNA was found on her breasts.
In her victim impact statement, she said she used to be known as the "funny blonde", but the assault had changed her.
"You took a part of me that day that I'll never get back," she wrote. "I still wake up every morning hating myself, hating every bit of my body.
"I'll never be that same girl I was back then."
Defence lawyer Simon Gillespie-Jones said his client, who has moved back to Sydney, is someone that has "been on the straight and narrow for a long time".
He said it wasn't a question of "Catholic priests" and "skulduggery" behaviour.
"It's a question of something that was only relatively quite fleeting," Mr Gillespie-Jones said.
A model who Lopes photographed several times in 2011-12 gave a character reference on his behalf, saying: "Phil hardly ever touched my body ... if he needed to, he'd ask for my permission first."
Lopes was assessed for a community corrections order on Monday and he will be sentenced by Judge Barbara Cotterell on Tuesday.
Mr Batten asked Judge Cotterell to take into account the power imbalance between Lopes and the victim, the breach of trust and the vulnerability of the young woman.