A WOMAN denies ‘barricading’ her friend in a storeroom with the nightclub boss who stands accused of forcing a bag of cocaine over her face before sexually assaulting her.

The witness gave evidence at the trial of Bushwackers and Browns at the Quay owner Darren Pinches at Warwick Crown Court yesterday. She told a jury she was ‘crying’ when police took her to the station for questioning and she discovered her friend had accused her of assisting in a sexual assault against her.

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

He further denies possession of cocaine at his then home in Berkley Gardens, Fernhill Heath on January 13 last year, the day police arrived to arrest him and brought him to the floor as he attempted to wash cocaine down his bathroom sink.

Pinches also denies supplying cocaine to a second woman at the Crypt in Bushwackers in Trinity Street, Worcester and the Quay in the city’s Quay Street between February 9 and 15, 2016 and offering to supply cocaine to a third in an upstairs room in Browns between September 10 and 13, 2015.

The former friend of the sexual assault complainant, who appeared yesterday as a defence witness, admits she left her friend with Darren Pinches after they went upstairs together to use a toilet on New Year’s Day.

She was examined by Michael Burrows QC, for Pinches, telling the jury she was seven or eight out of 10 on a scale of drunkenness that morning having had a bottle of wine and shots of Jägerbomb while her friend, the complainant, had drunk Malibu and coke and shots of Jägerbomb.

She also said both of them snorted cocaine in a downstairs toilet and that earlier messages the complainant had sent her about ‘ice’ and ‘coke’ were probably ‘code’ for the class A drug. A screenshot from a Snapchat video filmed by the witness showed Pinches at 4.48am at Bushwackers on the morning of the alleged assault. Later the short video of Pinches, lasting only a few seconds, was played to the jury. When the witness and her friend went upstairs she said they met Pinches on the landing.

She said: “I was a bit ‘oh no, I’m not meant to be upstairs'.” She said she talked to Pinches but could not remember about what, before she ‘took a big swig’ of her bottle of wine and went downstairs. The witness said that before she went downstairs she may have put have her foot across the threshold of the storeroom where the alleged sexual assault took place but did not have any cocaine in there with Pinches.

The complainant had previously stated that she kicked open the storeroom door when she fled after the alleged assault but the witness said ‘there wasn’t a door’ and ‘I have never seen a door there’.

Messages the witness sent to the complainant were also read to the jury. In one message the witness asked her ‘what happened?’ The complainant replies: “Just leave me alone. You said you wouldn’t leave me and you did.”

The witness said at this stage she had ‘no clue’ what her friend was alleging Pinches had done to her and thought she was upset that she had left her. Later the witness said she carried on messaging her friend but received no reply. One message read: “I shouldn’t have left you I know that. I’m disgusted with myself. I should be looking after you not making you feel unsafe.” She apologised for being a bad friend and texted ‘love you’. The witness said it had ‘bothered’ her that her friend had not replied to her messages.

Officers arrived at the home of the witness at about 7am on January 13 last year, the same morning Pinches was arrested. She told the jury she had ‘not a clue’ what it was about and described herself as being ‘really confused’.

“They said ‘we need to take you in for questioning over Darren Pinches, what happened on January 1’,” she said.

Officers seized her mobile phone. In the car on the way to the station she said she was asking what it was about and ‘crying’ but was told they would talk about it at the station. Once they got to the station she said officers told her Pinches had been arrested.

“As soon as I got there they told me I needed to make a statement as she (the complainant) was accusing me of assisted sexual assault,” she said. She told the jury she was warned she could be arrested for assisting a sexual assault. Up until then she had been unaware of the nature of the allegation against her.

Mr Burrows said: “Did you shut the door on her while she was in a room with Darren Pinches?”

“No,” she said.

“Did you put a chair against a door to block it at all?” Mr Burrows asked her.

Again she answered ‘no’. She was asked if Pinches had offered her cocaine to which she replied ‘no, never’ and said she had never seen him take the drug.

Under cross-examination by Ben Aina QC it was put to her that she depended on Pinches, whom she described as ‘strict’, for her livelihood to which she replied ‘my money, yes’. She was asked if it was possible she had taken cocaine in the toilets and her friend had not, to which she answered ‘no, she was taking cocaine as well’.

Mr Aina said: “Whilst she was in that room you barricaded that door, didn’t you?”

“No,” she said.

“And you were laughing, weren’t you? You were laughing as you left your friend, going down the stairs,” said Mr Aina.

“No,” she repeated.

“That is part of the reason you’re no longer friends,” continued Mr Aina.

“No, not at all,” said the witness.

During re-examination by Mr Burrows, the witness she said she kept telling officers ‘I’m not ready to do this’ as they took her statement and that she was ‘quite hungover’ and ‘quite tired’ but that they kept on bringing her glasses of water and said to her ‘we need to proceed’. She said she had been at the station for three to four hours and wanted to go home.

The trial continues.