Bromyard man denies raping woman after night out (From Hereford Times)

Bromyard man denies raping woman after night out

12:05pm Tuesday 8th January 2013 in News

A BROMYARD man has denied raping a woman after she invited him back to her house after a night out.

Simon Walters-Melville, formerly of Winslow View, Winslow, Bromyard, is accused of attacking a woman he met on a night out in Worcester on March 11 last year.

Walters-Melville, a 25-year-old apprentice engineer, told police that she had agreed to have intercourse.

Prosecutor Samantha Forsyth told Worcester Crown Court that they had met after the woman had been celebrating with friends at the Postal Order and Bushwackers nightclub in Worcester before finishing up at Shakeeys fast-food restaurant.

It was there that she began talking to Walters-Melville and they agreed to share a taxi, because they lived not far from each other.

When they went into her house, they shared a bottle of wine and the next thing she remembered was being on the floor of her living room with Walters-Melville on top of her having sex.

Miss Forsyth said she had been forced so she ran upstairs and locked herself in a small room.

She telephoned a friend in a distressed state and then her mother, who called the police.

Walters-Melville was still at the house and insisted she had consented to have sex.

But, said Miss Forsyth, she had injuries to her arms and legs which demonstrated she had been held down.

She also had internal injuries consistent with forced intercourse. The buttons had been ripped off her blouse and her underwear had also been ripped.

A test showed that she was well over the drink-drive limit.

Police found Walters-Melville’s shirt, which bore a bloodstain.

Simon Burns, defending, suggested to the woman that she got carried away when Walters-Melville became affectionate and this resulted in kissing.

She replied: “I doubt it very much. I have no memory of that.”

She denied that she had been flirting or showed him a mark on her leg. She also denied straddling him on the settee when she was under the influence of drink.

Asked why she didn’t say “no” when he asked for sex, she replied that he was an extremely large man who had taken advantage of her.

None of her friends would have done that and she was unsure what was going to happen.

She rejected a suggestion that “passion and drink” had taken over in place of judgement and she had responded. “I wasn’t enjoying it,” she said.

Walters-Melville told the jury that the woman, who was later estimated to have been three-and-a-half times over the legal drink-drive limit, had been responding all the time they were having sex. He said he had not held her down and she had not fallen asleep or lost consciousness.

The trial continues.