'She was flirting with me' rape trial jury is told (From thisisoxfordshire)

'She was flirting with me' rape trial jury is told

9:30am Thursday 21st February 2013 in News

A MAN who denies raping a woman in an Oxford park told police that she had been flirting with him, Oxford Crown Court heard yesterday.

Julio Dos-Santos, of Nightingale Avenue, Oxford, and Takudzwa Hunda, of Casterbridge Road, Swindon, both deny the attack in Bury Knowle Park, Headington, on September 11.

The pair have both been charged with rape and of a serious sexual assault.

Yesterday, during the third day of their trial at Oxford Crown Court, the jury was read a police interview which took place on September 12 last year.

In it Hunda, 26, who works at the Hartwell Ford garage in Abingdon, said he had driven his friend Dos-Santos, 28, and a woman who cannot be named for legal reasons to the park.

He said: “We were tickling each other. She was playing with my hair and telling me how good looking I was. At no point was she so drunk she couldn’t remember anything. She was flirting.”

Ian Acheson, prosecuting, read the court a list of the injuries a medical examination identified on the woman after she went to police.

He said these included “pinpoint bruises” on her neck, chest and back, along with “superficial grazing” on her knees. The trial continues.