Story by Hamish Broome •
A SLEAZY Byron Bay masseur with a history of performing sexual acts on unwilling female clients has been jailed again for indecent assault.
Claude Novi, now 64, was sentenced to four months in jail for indecently assaulting a woman during a paid massage session at the Replenish Massage clinic on Lawson St in April 2016.
The Coopers Shoot resident was convicted after a hearing in Ballina Local Court on April 20 this year.
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The woman, then in her late 20s, told the court she was holidaying in Byron Bay for a short time with a friend and had booked what was advertised as a “body harmony” massage.
Novi at first made “inappropriate” conversation about her age, ethnicity, job, and whether she was in a relationship.
While she was lying face down he pulled her bikini bottoms half way down and commenced a “really forceful” massage of her upper buttocks.
Some time later he asked her to turned over, and fluffed the massage cover sheet up like a bed sheet, exposing her breasts three or four times.
Feeling “vulnerable and scared” she tried to tell him to “keep it modest”, but he brushed it off and made her “feel really stupid and silly”.
Her told her she was “smart, intelligent and beautiful” and suggested she would be “perfect” for a relationship with his son.
“Now it’s time to get to your little heart,” he said, then chuckling, “well I mean big heart”.
He proceeded to massage her chest and move the circular motions wider and wider until his hands went over the top of her breasts.
The woman said she was in “shock”, and was “embarrassed” and “really scared”.
“I could feel him breathing and hovering over me so I just, I felt like I, I couldn’t move at that point.”
Novi was previously convicted of four counts of indecent assault against female clients in 2007 and 2009 and was jailed for 12 months.