A Tasmanian councillor allegedly flashed his genitals at a Crown prosecutor at Boat Harbour Beach three times before wrapping his entire head in a towel and disappearing from the beach, a Burnie court has heard.
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The hearing of Boat Harbour's Darren Lindsay Fairbrother started on Monday morning at the Burnie Magistrates Court.
Mr Fairbrother, a councillor at Waratah-Wynyard, had previously plead not guilty to a charge of prohibited behaviour, in which it has been alleged that he exposed his naked genitals to a woman and a teenage boy on a public beach.
Police Prosecutor Phillipa Edwards explained that she would call a variety of witnesses, including those involved in the incident and a woman who would testify that Mr Fairbrother had a "tendency" towards such behaviour.
Crown counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions Katrina Brown was the first witness to take to the stand.
She explained that she, her husband and their two sons had visited Boat Harbour in January this year on a holiday, as they had done for many years.
The court heard Mrs Brown had been at the beach with her 15-year-old son on January 6, about 3pm, where she had noticed a man "mucking around" with a tightly wrapped towel.
"The next time I looked up I realised he had his towel completely open and was looking directly at me," she said.
"He had his arms holding the towel at 180 degrees. He was spreading his legs and he was naked."
Mrs Brown alleged the man had done it two more times. She explained that she had then asked another beachgoer who the man was, and that the other beachgoer had confirmed the man to be Darren Fairbrother.
Mrs Brown said later that same afternoon the man she now believed to be Mr Fairbrother had then walked to within two metres of where she was sitting.
"I was a little bit concerned," she said.
"I was on the beach on my own and I guess because I had an injury and couldn't walk fast I felt quite vulnerable.
"He was looking towards me and trying to make eye contact."
Mrs Brown said she had then taken out her phone to call a family member.
"He stopped about three or four metres to my left and started undressing in front of me," she said.
"He took his t-shirt and his sneakers off and started swimming in his shorts."
The court heard Mrs Brown then recalled Mr Fairbrother getting out of the water and wrapping his towel "completely around his head."
She said the thought had occurred to her to take a photo, but that when she turned to see him he had disappeared without walking past her to use the public access.
Mrs Brown said her husband and her oldest son had later gone to Mr Fairbrother's house to confront him.
"[My son] said to him something like 'you mooned my mum', and Mr Fairbrother's response was 'It might have been my wife, she's got a pretty fat ass you know'," she said.
The police prosecutor asked Mrs Brown to identify Darren Fairbrother in the court as the man she had seen that day on the beach.
Mrs Brown confirmed it was the same man, despite a new beard, shorter hair and weight loss.
Ms Edwards asked how the incident had made Mrs Brown feel.
"I was just shocked," she said.
"I thought it was creepy and weird and a bit pathetic."
The hearing continues.
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