• Former Cricket Australia manager charged with assault
• Follows two alleged separate incidents in 2016 and 2019
• Timothy Joseph Whittaker, 38, has pleaded not guilty

Text messages sent by a former Cricket Australia executive after a colleague accused him of allegedly performing a sexual act on him while he slept have been read to a court.

Timothy Joseph Whittaker, 38, took the witness stand Monday at his contested hearing on two allegations of inappropriate sexual touching without consent in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.

Mr Whittaker, Cricket Australia’s former head of communications who spoke for the organization during the Cape Town ball-tampering scandal in 2018, has pleaded not guilty and denies the allegations.

He is accused of touching the penises of two colleagues in separate alleged incidents in January 2016 and March 2019.

Both men have claimed they allegedly woke up in Mr Whittaker’s bed after nights of heavy drinking to see him rubbing their penises.

Prosecutor Sharn-Adelle Coombes read several text messages from Mr Whittaker to a man shortly after he left the defendant’s home around 5.30am.

She told the court Mr Whittaker texted the man at 5.36am saying “yo where are you?” before receiving a quick phone call in reply.

Minutes later, he fired off more messages, which read, “You just can’t call me and say that mate.”

“Sorry but what the heck,” read the message.

“Come on up and have a drink… there’s no damn way I made this guy.

“You can’t just say that and hang up.”

On cross-examination, Mr Whittaker agreed that he sent the texts but said it was “to gather more information”.

“[From the phone call]I knew he was accusing me of something, but I couldn’t understand it,” he said.

“It was shocking… I didn’t get it. I wanted to contact him and see if we can talk about it.’

He told the court he was barely awake at the time and had “processed” the allegation, saying it was a “stupid call” to ask the man out for a drink.

Mr Whittaker told the court he had no sexual interest in the applicants and denied ever having beded either man.

He said in the first alleged incident he slept on the couch in 2016 while the man and a friend took his bed, while in 2019 he slept in his bed after the alleged victim fell asleep on his couch.

The court had previously heard the first applicant say he only reported the alleged incident in 2021 because he believed Mr Whittaker was asleep, agreeing with him when the doubt came up.

He told Cricket Australia’s HR department in December 2021 he now suspected Mr Whittaker was pretending to be asleep after hearing “rumours” about other complaints.

The second applicant told the court he had no recollection of allegedly going to bed off Mr Whittaker’s couch after a Cricket Australia party at the end of the season in March 2019.

He claimed that when he woke up, Mr Whittaker allegedly rolled over and pretended to be asleep.

Ms Coombes told the court there was a “strong similarity” between the two allegations.

“The applicants are unknown to each other, there is no indication that they have spoken to each other or are aware of each other,” she said.

On Monday, Judge Timothy Gattuso denied a no-case filing by Mr Whittaker’s attorney, Dermot Dann KC, to find his client not guilty of the first allegation.

He had argued that prosecutors had not proved Mr Whittaker was awake when the alleged act took place, although the defense did not admit that sexual touching had taken place.

“He (the alleged victim) said he thought he was asleep for years,” Mr Dann said.

“His final position is that he changed his mind because he heard a rumor. The deficiency concerns a central element of the case.”

Victorian law requires prosecutors to show that a person accused of a sex offense made a conscious, voluntary and intentional choice to engage in the conduct.

But Ms Coombes argued the alleged victim’s evidence was that Mr Whittaker allegedly had his hand down the complainant’s trousers and made a “deliberate movement”.

The hearing continues.