AUSTRALIAN racer Joey Mawson has been identified as the alleged rapist accused of attacking Michael Schumacher’s nurse while staying at the F1 legend’s home.
Mawson, 29, is said to have raped the unconscious woman twice after a cocktail party at the mansion in Gland, Switzerland, in 2019, prosecutors allege.
Mawson denies the charge, claiming their relationship was close and consensual – and that they had previously shared a kiss at a Geneva nightclub.
Mawson was once a rising star of the racing world who dreamed of F1 before his form plateaued and he returned to Australia.
He was a close friend and rival of Schumacher’s son Mick – and raced against other future racing icons such as Lando Norris and George Russell.
A trial was scheduled for this week and a one-and-a-half-page indictment was drawn up by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the District of La Côte.
But Mawson, a double champion of the Australian S5000 and currently banned from racing over a doping scandal, failed to appear in court yesterday.
In his absence, the rape trial was formally opened, but then adjourned to “a date to be fixed”.
The Sun has approached Mawson for comment.
The indictment accuses him of raping one of Schumacher’s nurses while she was unconscious following a night of vodka cocktails.
It states that she was a live-in carer for Michael Schumacher, who is believed to require round-the-clock care after his tragic skiing accident.
No member of the Schumacher family is implicated in the case.
The allegations date back to 2019, with a criminal complaint filed against the unnamed driver three years ago.
Court documents allege that on the night of November 23, 2019, Mawson was staying at the sprawling mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva.
He was playing pool in the billiard room with two other members of the stricken racing icon’s staff when the alleged victim joined them after a tiring shift, the indictment states.
It is claimed that the nurse began to feel unwell after a few drinks and needed to lie on the floor before being taken to bed by some of her colleagues.
They laid the nurse down “without undressing her” and left her, asleep, with the lights on, the indictment claims.
It was shortly afterwards that the driver returned to the room and twice raped her while she was unconscious, the files allege.
Neither of the other two medics who were there that evening say they saw or heard anything, and the nurse herself woke up with no memory of the night’s events.
It is understood that the nurse decided against pursuing criminal charges or informing the Schumacher family until 2022, when she was reportedly fired from the medical team.
Bild reports Mick and Mawson haven’t been in contact for “many years” – and the Schumacher family declined to comment.
The Sun has contacted the Schumacher family’s publicist for comment.
Mawson rose up through the ranks of several junior championships in Asia and Europe, where he encountered Mick Schumacher as first a rival and then a friend.
In 2019 – at the time of the alleged rape – he competed in various cups and series, making the most appearances for Team Australia in the Porsche Supercup.
After moving back to Australia, he competed in several series of the S5000 championship, which he conquered twice in 2021 and 2022.
In the midst of the third series in 2023, he was found to have used a banned supplement and was promptly suspended.
A behind-the-scenes trial slapped him with a three-year ban running from May 2023 to May 2026.
An investigating source told The Sun that officials went to Gland to speak with legal officials last year about the allegations.
Inside Michael Schumacher’s recovery
Seven-time F1 world champion Schumacher, 56, has remained shielded from public view since sustaining a catastrophic brain trauma in the French Alps back in December 2013.
His wife Corinna has been managing his treatment.
Schumacher requires constant care at his home on the shores of Lake Geneva.
There was a “positive” update on his health from a Formula One insider just yesterday.
The motorsport journalist says there are a number of “good signs” surrounding the F1 icon’s latest condition 11 years on from his tragic skiing accident.
Stéfan L’Hermitt of L’Equipe, believes there may have been positive progress made by Schumacher across the past 12 months.
He told Le Grand Recit: “I would say he’s not doing well, but he might be getting better because fundamentally we don’t know anything.
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“This year, he signed a helmet for a charity event.
“Was it his wife who held his hand? We don’t know exactly, but it’s the first time we’ve had a kind of positive sign, almost a sign of life.”
What happened to Michael Schumacher?
MICHAEL Schumacher’s life was hanging by a thread 12 years ago as medics tried desperately to keep him alive after a tragic skiing crash that left him with horrific brain injuries.
The F1 legend was given the best possible treatment as he was put into a medically induced coma, had his body temperature lowered and underwent hours of tricky operations on his brain.
Back in 2013, the retired seven-time world champion, and his then 14-year-old son set off on the Combe de Saulire ski run in the exclusive French resort of Meribel.
Footage from his helmet camera revealed he was not travelling at excessive speed when his skis struck a rock hidden beneath the snow.
He catapulted forward 11.5ft and crashed into a boulder head first that split his helmet into two and left him needing to be airlifted to hospital for two life-saving operations.
At one point his family were told to brace themselves for the worst case scenario as the situation was much worse than originally believed.
At the time, medics said Schumacher was likely to stay in an induced coma for at least 48 hours as his body and mind recovered.
But the coma ended up lasting 250 days – more than eight months.
After he woke up in June 2014, he was discharged from hospital and sent to his home in Lake Geneva to get further treatment.
Since then his wife Corinna and his inner circle of friends have expertly avoided almost anything leaking out about his health status.
Only small amounts of information have been released including reports that Schumacher was in a wheelchair but can react to things around him.
In 2019, it was said that Schumacher was set to undergo breakthrough stem cell therapy in a bid to regenerate and rebuild his nervous system.
Renowned France cardiologist Dr Philippe Menasche, who had operated on him previously, was set to carry out the treatment that would see cells from his heart go to his brain.
Following the treatment at the Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris, he was said to be “conscious”, although few other details were given about his state.
