A DAD accused of sexually assaulting an older woman and an underage girl must wait to learn his fate after the jury retired to consider verdicts.

Daniel Edwards denies two assaults by penetration, trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence at his trial at Worcester Crown Court which began on Monday. The 28-year-old is accused of assaulting a girl aged 13 to 15 as she gave him a ‘backie’ on her friend’s bike from Pizza Allegro in Cranham Drive in Warndon, Worcester. The assault is alleged to have taken place in an alley off Cranham Drive between 2008 and 2011. Now an adult, the complainant said she feared she would be dragged into bushes and raped.

The second alleged assault is said to have taken place in the home of an older woman in Warndon, now aged in her 40s, as she lay asleep in her bed in the summer of 2013. Edwards previously of Langdale Drive, Warndon, Worcester, accepts climbing into her flat through an open kitchen window but denies that any assault took place, saying he was looking for somewhere to stay because he was locked out of his own home. Yesterday was taken up with the closing speeches of prosecution and defence and the summing up of the evidence by Judge Nicholas Cole.

Laura Culley, prosecuting, said one complainant awoke in her own bed to find Edwards ‘half naked’, sexually assaulting her. Miss Culley said: “She was momentarily confused to be woken in this way when it dawned on her the almost unbelievable situation she found herself in.

“She described the terror she felt in those moments and wondered if this was someone who was going to hurt her.”

Miss Culley went on to describe the ‘profound impact’ on the victim, including her inability to feel safe in her own home or to sleep properly at night.

“She didn’t dream it, sadly. No, sadly she didn’t imagine it,” said Miss Culley.

When it was suggested she had made it up, the complainant told the jury: “I wouldn’t be that cruel.” Adam Western, defending, provided character references from several witnesses in which Edwards was described as ‘kind’, ‘caring’, hardworking, honest and a ‘doting dad’. One said: “I would trust him with my life.”

The barrister asked the jury to consider ‘the Lucozade question’ regarding the alleged assault of the girl on her bike.

He said: “Fifteen minutes after she had last seen him, what was the pressing need to go straight out again? What was the reason that drove her to overcome the fear and shock and panic she would have you believe she was experiencing and run the risk of being confronted again by this dangerous, hyped-up, cheerful, predatory sex offender on the loose in Warndon? The answer to that question is Lucozade.”

He said the defendant was left-handed and her evidence had been that that he sexually assaulted her with his right. He said his client had ‘candidly’; admitted trespassing in the flat of the other complainant in the case and ‘knew he was in the wrong’ but that did not mean he was guilty of the crime alleged. Mr Western said the explanation for her account was that she had had a ‘vivid dream, perhaps brought on by the cocktail of cider, Bacardi and Valium she had drunk and taken that night’. The trial continues.