A NIGHTCLUB boss accused of a sex assault lied to police about his cocaine abuse, telling them he never took drugs.

No progress was made in the trial of Bushwackers boss Darren Pinches at Warwick Crown Court yesterday because a juror was sick. The defence case, which began on Friday, is expected to resume this morning if the juror has recovered. We can now reveal in more detail some of the fraught exchanges between the 52-year-old defendant and prosecutor Ben Aina QC during lengthy cross-examination on Friday. We can also reveal the views of an expert witness, DC Nick Lobo, who told a jury that cocaine abuse could could cause ‘disinhibition’, including ‘more risky sexual behaviour’.

Pinches of Bromyard Road, Worcester, denies administering cocaine to stupefy or overpower a woman to enable him to engage in sexual activity and a sexual assault in a Bushwackers storeroom on January 1 last year, supplying cocaine to a second woman at the Crypt in Bushwackers and an apartment at the Quay between February 9 and 15, 2016 and offering to supply cocaine to a third at Browns at the Quay between September 10 and 13, 2015.

Mr Aina challenged Pinches about his cocaine use, telling him the public was not allowed to bring the class A drug into his clubs to which Pinches responded: “Yeah but they do.”

As previously reported Pinches was brought to the floor by police officers at his home at Berkley Gardens, Fernhill Heath on January 13 last year after they caught him trying to wash cocaine down the bathroom sink. The cocaine seized from the sink contained what expert witness DC Nick Lobo called an ‘unusual’ combination of cocaine, paracetamol and a cattle worming agent called Levamisole. The cocaine recovered from the sink also matched a sample taken from the top of a speaker by a scenes of crime officer at a storeroom in Bushwackers later that day, the same storeroom where one of the complainants, now 22, claims the club owner forced a bag of cocaine over her nose before sexually assaulting her. Of the 1,200 cases of this drug being discovered in the Midlands in the 12 months before the arrest of Pinches only four such seizures (half a per cent) contained this combination of adulterants said DC Lobo.

Pinches said if a large quantity of cocaine was found at one of his clubs he would hand it over to police but he had ‘never been in that situation before’.

Pinches told the jury he had been the chairman of Worcester NightSafe and that police had never mentioned how to dispose of drugs found at clubs and he had been in regular contact with the licensing officer.

Mr Aina said: “Were you in fact running a system where you wanted to keep any cocaine you found on your premises for yourself?”

Pinches denied this was the case.

Mr Aina told the jury that 35 minutes into Pinches's interview on the day of his arrest the nightclub owner said: “I have never done any drugs.”

Mr Aina said to Pinches: “That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Yep” said Pinches.

“The reason why you were lying was that your guilty mind was operating.”

“No, I was very embarrassed” said Pinches. He also said he told his legal team about his drug use and it was referred to in his defence statement.

Pinches told the jury of six men and six women he did not often go into his clubs as it was 'a bit odd for an old man'. He was asked why he did not escort the woman who accuses him of sexual assault to the toilet as that was why she had gone upstairs in Bushwackers. Pinches answered that 'she went downstairs quite quickly anyway' and added: "I didn't want to be rude and say 'go away now'."

The trial continues.