A DOORMAN saw the alleged victim of a sexual assault by a nightclub owner ‘wide-eyed’ and ‘fearful’ after the attack a court heard.

Bushwackers door supervisor James Stapleton gave evidence at Warwick Crown Court at the trial of his boss, Darren Pinches.

Pinches, 52, of Bromyard Road, Worcester denies administering cocaine with intent to overpower or stupefy the complainant to enable him to engage in sexual activity with her and a sexual assault upon her at the Worcester club on New Year’s Day last year.

He further denies possession of cocaine at his home in Fernhill Heath on January 13 last year, supplying cocaine to a woman between February 9 and 13 2016 and offering to supply cocaine to a third woman between September 3 and 5, 2015.

Door supervisor James Stapleton said he saw the complainant at the bottom of the stairs in the Worcester club in the early hours of New Year’s Day last year after the alleged sexual assault.

A glass collector, Liam Chilton, also said he saw the same woman that morning and she told him Pinches tried to rape her and that he heard the defendant asking for the club’s CCTV to be turned off.

Mr Stapleton said: “She looked a bit wide-eyed, just not her normal self. She was worried, upset. She appeared fearful.”

He told the jury that she waved him over and started crying when he asked her if she was okay.

The following day he said she told him that Pinches tried to rape her and she was ‘upset and scared.’

Under cross-examination he said she had walked towards him not run and had left by the club’s back entrance. Mr Chilton described the complainant as appearing ‘distressed’ and ‘emotionally charged.’

In his original statement he said she told him that Pinches had ‘tried to rape me’ but from the witness box he said that she claimed at the time she was actually raped.

He described her as moderately drunk and formed the view ‘she might have taken cocaine.’

He said: “From my statement it says Darren was asking for the CCTV to be turned off.”

A male friend of the complainant also gave evidence. He said he had seen her at the club that night and she later texted him saying ‘the owner of Bushys tried raping me. He touched me sexually, forcefully upstairs at Bushys and no one could hear me calling for help.”

Bushwackers general manager Mark Humpage, who has worked at the Bushwackers clubs in Birmingham and Worcester for 24 years, also appeared as a witness.

He said he received a text message from Pinches on January 12 last year asking him to close the doors at Bushwackers and another text telling him to drop off £2,000 which was to come out of the till.

He said he found a clear self-sealing bag containing a white powder he suspected to be cocaine in the disabled toilet at Bushwackers, placing this in a money bag.

My Humpage said normally suspected drugs were placed in a safe in the kitchen but the key had snapped in the safe.

The court heard if he found drugs in a club he would let Pinches know by texting the word ‘mate’ which was their ‘code’ because texting ‘got some coke, going to drop it to you’ sounds ‘really bad.’

He said he dropped off the £2,000 from the till with a further £1,000 from Birmingham which he already had with him and the clear plastic bag with an elastic bag around it containing the suspected drugs at Pinches’s home in Berkley Gardens, Fernhill Heath.

On January 13 Pinches was arrested which is when the prosecution say he attempted to wash cocaine down the sink.

The trial continues.