Rape charge man tells of booze session (From Worcester News)

Rape charge man tells of booze session

8:00am Tuesday 8th January 2013 in News

A WORCESTER man who denies raping a woman after they had both been drinking told a jury they had just “got carried away”.

Simon Walters-Melville, of Tolladine Road, Worcester, met the woman in Shakeey's takeaway and bar in the city centre after he had been drinking with friends and had been to a house party in St John’s, Worcester.

He had drunk most of two bottles of wine, Jack Daniels and champagne and bought the woman tequila shots in the early hours of March 11 last year.

The 26-year-old apprentice engineer, who denies a charge of rape, said they bought a bottle of wine and took a taxi back to her house at about 5.30am. He told the jury he had been sitting on the sofa in the woman’s living room and they had been chatting when she started showing him a mark on her leg. He asked in a “flirty” way if she had any more and she sat astride him.

They started kissing and he then asked her if it was what she wanted. “She didn't answer with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ but the fact that she went on kissing was a good enough indication that she wanted to carry on,” he said.

But because of the drink and the time of day they gave up and sat against the sofa, he said. She fell asleep and he went to carry her upstairs to make her more comfortable but his back was hurting and he put her down at the foot of the stairs.

He was “shocked” when she suddenly woke up and ran upstairs, shutting herself in a bedroom. He opened the door and she was curled up on the floor, crying. When he asked what the matter was, she ran into the main bedroom and hid under the duvet. He lay down beside her and they fell asleep. He said the woman had not shouted at him or made accusations but when he woke up just before 9.30am, he heard her talking on the telephone downstairs and she seemed upset.

She went back upstairs and told him the back door was open if he wanted to make a run for it.

The police arrived shortly afterwards and he was arrested. He was found to have her blood on his shirt but did not know how it had got there.

He said the woman, who was later estimated to have been three-and-a-half times over the legal drink-drive limit, had been responding all the time they were having sex. He said he had not held her down and she had not fallen asleep or lost consciousness.

The trial continues.