A WOMAN has described how a man invited her to his home, gave her a drug and sexually assaulted her when she was passed out.
The alleged victim was giving evidence on the first day of Christopher Adams’ trial in the Royal Court. Mr Adams denies one charge of sexual penetration without consent.
Crown Advocate Carla Carvalho, prosecuting, said the woman had bumped into Adams (47) at a mutual friend’s house.
The pair, who are known to each other, then visited two pubs before going back to his bedsit.
The woman told the jury she sat on his bed as there was no other furniture, and that Mr Adams offered her a brown drug and told her it was diazepam, a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety.
After taking the substance, she immediately fell asleep on his bed, the court heard, and when she woke up, she described finding her clothes pulled down and the defendant performing a sex act on her.
A police interview was also read out in court, in which the woman said: “I said: ‘What the hell are you doing?’
“I would have left but I must have just gone straight back to sleep again.”
When she woke up later that night, the woman described finding her trousers, knickers and socks at the bottom of the bed.
“He said: ‘You must have taken them off.’
“I said: ‘What the hell have you done to me? I’m going to the police.’
“I was just absolutely mortified.
“I didn’t do anything consensually; I had no plans of staying there with him.”
Advocate Estelle Burns, defending, disputed that the drug the woman took was diazepam, arguing that it was in fact a white powder – the opioid subutex.
Advocate Burns said the alleged victim had consented to the sex act but had lied about it in the morning because she was scared of her partner’s reaction.
Cross-examined about why she did not go home, the woman responded that she had fallen asleep.
“I don’t know what [Mr Adams] could do to me while I was unconscious,” she added.
Commissioner Alan Binnington is presiding. The trial is due to last for two more days.
