Sydney man charged with murder, sex assault

A man charged with the murder of a teenage girl who plunged from the balcony of a Sydney apartment while fleeing the knife-wielding intruder has refused to appear in court today.

Brendan David Dennison, 26, was taken to Central Local Court this morning but refused to come up from his cell during the brief hearing. He did not apply for bail.

Magistrate Allan Moore ordered DNA samples to be taken from Dennison and for the matter to reappear at the same court on December 11.

Outside court, a lawyer acting for the family of the deceased teenage girl, Daniel Sheen, said the victim's mother had arrived on a China Eastern Airlines flight from Shanghai this morning.

It is expected she will identify her daughter's body at Glebe morgue later today and a funeral service will be held in the next few days because "this is the place that she has been living and studying in for a long time".

Mr Sheen said the teenager would be cremated and her ashes would be taken back to China.

Mr Sheen confirmed that the dead girl's mother was a "famous" and "successful" businesswoman from the town of Jiang You in the Chinese province of Szechuan.

Earlier this year, the earthquake that hit the province had destroyed her home and the supermaket she owned, Mr Sheen said.

"She's lost her home, her business and now she's lost her only child."

Dennison, who police also allege repeatedly sexually assaulted the four occupants of the apartment, was arrested by police in the inner-city suburb of Redfern about 8.20pm.

He was charged this morning with a total of 21 offences, including murder, recklessly causing grievous bodily harm, four counts of inciting others to commit acts of indecency and five counts of aggravated sexual assault.

Detectives said the man was arrested on a street and they were yet to search any homes for evidence.

The man was also charged with: two counts of inflicting actual bodily harm with intent to have sexual intercourse, assault with act of indecency, special aggravated break and enter [commit serious indictable offence], two counts of robbery armed with an offensive weapon and four counts of detaining a person with intent to obtain advantage [sexual gratification].

The dead woman, a student from China, shared the flat with her 19-year-old Korean boyfriend, who was also seriously injured in a fall trying to escape the alleged attack.

Both were naked when they fell.

The four people inside the apartment at the time of the alleged home invasion were students at a language school which prepares international students for university.

One of the classrooms at the school has been turned into an impromptu memorial for the alleged victim, with a photo of her and dozens of messages written by fellow students.

The arrest came after police released CCTV footage of a man wanted over the alleged attack.

The commander of the NSW Homicide Squad, Superintendent Geoff Beresford, yesterday said 20 detectives had joined the hunt for the alleged attacker.

-with Leesha McKenny, Alex Tibbitts and Peter Hawkins