Prosecutor Richard Milne told Amersham Law Courts the defendant and the alleged victims would be referred to by their biological sex throughout the trial when discussing the allegations.<\/p>\n
He said the first alleged victim said in a statement to police that she did not realise at the time that she was “being groomed”, <\/p>\n
She alleged that at the age of 13, 14 or 15, the pair met up, and the defendant took her virginity, also choking her so she could not speak.<\/p>\n
The court heard that the defendant met the first alleged victim, then 12, in person at a Christian festival while working there as a steward, and told her they were in a relationship, despite her wearing a “bracelet pass” for a child.<\/p>\n
In his opening to the jury, Mr Milne said the first alleged victim met the defendant on a website.<\/p>\n
The court heard their communications became sexual around a month after first meeting online, with the alleged victim describing their relationship as a “trauma bond”.<\/p>\n
After taking the first alleged victim’s virginity, the defendant had sex with her on a number of occasions, the court heard.<\/p>\n
Mr Milne said: “He would tell [the first alleged victim] that they enjoyed being raped, to which [they] replied no.<\/p>\n
“The Crown says this defendant befriended and sexually assaulted [the first complainant] just before her 13th birthday.”<\/p>\n
He added that the defendant had sexual encounters with her when she was 13 to 15 years old, and then, after a gap, the prosecution says he raped her when she was 18.<\/p>\n
The defendant has denied one count of rape in relation to one complainant and two counts of rape, two counts of sexual activity with a child, one count of assault of a child under 13 by penetration, one count of rape of a child under 13 and one count of assault by penetration in relation to the other complainant.<\/p>\n
All the alleged offences are said to have taken place between 1 January 2018 and 2 April 2024.<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prosecutor Richard Milne told Amersham Law Courts the defendant and the alleged victims would be referred to by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[12,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-336488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115011775652635934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}