Girlfriend and former business partner of Joseph Luke Williams takes stand on emotional day in court

The girlfriend and former business partner of self-proclaimed healer Joseph Luke Williams has taken the stand on an emotional eighth day of his sexual assault trial in Albany. Mr Williams, 58, is fighting 12 charges of sexual penetration without consent and two charges of indecent assault in a District Court trial, with defence lawyer Bruno Illari arguing that the sexual acts were either consensual, did not happen in the way the women claim, or did not happen at all. The State has alleged Mr Williams assaulted the women between 2010 and 2014 in Denmark, Stirling Range National Park, Perth, and Broome, with some of the allegations involving penetration by rocks which he claimed had healing powers. State prosecutor Beau Sertorio alleges Mr Williams, who lives in Denmark, abused his cultural knowledge, manipulating six women aged 18 to 34 for his own sexual gratification. Taking the stand today, Mr Williams’ partner and former Poornarti Aboriginal Tours manager Catherine Mercer, 49, gave evidence as part of the defence case. Ms Mercer said prior to their relationship she took part in a “changing of the seasons” ceremony at Denmark’s Hay River which involved Mr Williams. She said there was a main facilitator from a group of “hippy women” who took control of the event, asking other women to get in touch with nature by taking their tops off. After feeling peer-pressured to take her top off, Ms Mercer participated in a “water nurture” with Mr Williams. “There was no sense of inappropriateness... I felt safe, comfortable and he didn’t look at my body,” she told the court. Ms Mercer described how Mr Williams held her in the water with his left hand under her shoulders and right hand under her thighs. “It felt nice, soothing, comfortable and safe,” she said. She told the court she participated in another one-on-one healing ritual with Mr Williams in 2014. She was never asked to remove her clothing but “felt a vibration on the small of my back” from a black stone Mr Williams was holding. In 2015, she initiated a relationship with Mr Williams, after which they established Poornarti Aboriginal Tours together, she said. Ms Mercer said they had conducted hundreds of cultural experience tours, taking tourists to significant sites around Denmark. She produced all of the promotion material for Poornarti because Mr Williams “doesn’t even know how to turn (a computer) on”. On the Poornarti Aboriginal Tours website, Mr Williams was described as an Aboriginal elder, cultural adviser and lore man, who had “mastered the ancient technique of vibrational healing passed onto him through his ancestral lineage”. “He has been a cultural educator and art lecturer at TAFE for nine years and has been instrumental in fusing the reconciliation process throughout communities in the region,” the website said. Poonarti’s tourism offerings included water healing, vibrational healing and soul camps. Under questioning by State prosecutor Beau Sertorio, Ms Mercer said she was an honest person. Mr Sertorio asked her if she would ever seek to gain benefit through dishonest means, before telling the court Ms Mercer had spent time in prison for fraud. Earlier today, Mr Williams broke down in tears as his adult children also gave evidence. The children had differing accounts of whether their father had referred to himself as an “elder”. Mr Williams’ 35-year-old daughter told the court her father never said he was an elder, lore man or medicine man. After leaving the witness box, his daughter glanced at him and mouthed “I love you, Dad”. With the defence case complete, the 11-person jury is sit to return to court on Tuesday for closing statements.