The man who ran the Territory Labor Party for nearly a decade before being promoted to Michael Gunner’s inner sanctum of advisers has been found guilty of raping a female who is known to him when she was a child.

The Supreme Court jury returned their verdict on Wednesday afternoon, finding Kent Rowe guilty of six counts of sexual intercourse without consent.

The witness list for the seven-day trial included prominent local business people and families, other Territory Labor Party figures, the Deputy Chief Minister Nicole Manison’s brother, Michael Gunner’s former electorate officer and a Darwin alderman.

The former Labor Party secretary had pleaded not guilty to raping the female when she was a child and he was in his early 20s. The instances date back 20 years.

The court had heard that Rowe’s wife and current alderman Rebecca Want de Rowe had been made aware of the sex crimes in 2018.

During the trial, prosecutors told the court that Kent Rowe apologised to the victim “repeatedly” last year when the victim called him as part of a “pretext call” that was recorded, in which he “refers to what he did as ‘abhorrent’,” said Crown prosecutor Tamara Grealy in her opening statement to jurors.

Defence barrister Jon Tippett did not offer opening remarks.

The victim had told the court during the trial that she was repeatedly molested by Rowe when she was a child and once woke up to find him touching her.

Ms Grealy told the jurors in closing remarks that Rowe had “tried to make it her shame as well”, telling the woman it was “something they shared”.

He had reportedly told a friend who had found out about the sexual assaults years later that he was just “mucking around” and that the victim “did not have an issue” with the assaults.

The court had also heard that the victim had disclosed the sex assaults to family and loved ones as far back as 16 years ago and had confronted Rowe in 2014, 2018 and 2021. She went to police last year.

The witness list, provided to the NT Independent by the courts last week, showed a number of Territory Labor figures were called to testify, including Deputy Chief Minister Nicole Manison’s brother Luke Manison, Territory Labor’s current secretary Karlee Dalton’s husband Robert Dalton, and Michael Gunner’s former electoral officer Hannah MacLeod.

Mr Gunner’s brother-in-law Ryan Neve was scratched from the witness list.

Mr Rowe’s wife and Darwin alderman Rebecca Want de Rowe also testified.

Mr Tippett said in closing remarks that “memory can be the great betrayer” and that the allegations were “insufficient” for a guilty verdict and suggested the victim had experienced “false memories”.

The jury went out to deliberate yesterday, returning the guilty verdict on all charges Wednesday afternoon.

Rowe was taken into custody after the guilty verdict. Sentencing submissions will be heard on October 6.

Rowe ran Labor’s 2020 re-election campaign with Mr Neve, while Rowe was working for Labor-aligned marketing company Campaign Edge Sprout.

Following the successful campaign, Rowe was promoted to act as one of Mr Gunner’s most senior advisers but was forced to resign after getting caught up in the so-called Labor cocaine sex scandal early last year.

At the time, Mr Gunner said Rowe had lied to him about an extra-marital affair with a local sex worker and was forced to resign, however Mr Gunner did not refer Rowe to the party for expulsion.