Chippping Norton man accused of raping woman in bed

Prosecutors say Ethan Allsford, 28, raped the woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, in the bedroom of his Chipping Norton home after a drinking session in March 2021.

Opening the case for the Crown on Monday afternoon (February 27), Jenny Burgess told jurors at Oxford Crown Court that the complainant had believed Allsford would sleep on the sofa while she would sleep in his bedroom.

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Instead, she was said to have felt him slipping into the bed – wearing only his boxer shorts.

He reached around and placed his hand into her underwear then tried to put her hand on his exposed genitals, Ms Burgess said.

Allsford was then said to have placed his hand back in her underwear as if, she was to later tell the police, ‘he had a right to’.

She made it clear that she did not want to have sex with him, spelling it out as he had had ‘quite a bit to drink’, the prosecutor told jurors.

In a further attempt to put him off, she was said to have pretended to sleep. It did not work, prosecutor Ms Burgess told the jury, and he pulled down her pyjamas and raped her.

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The assault was relatively short-lived, the jury heard, and ended with her ‘turning round and telling him to f*** off’. Ms Burgess said: “He reacted by turning over and pretending to be drunk and asleep.”

The woman got out of bed and almost immediately texted her friend, the court heard. That message, sent at around 12.40am, made it clear that she ‘did not consent’ to sex with Allsford and had ‘kicked him off’.

Around 20 minutes later she followed the messages up with another text, saying that while he was ‘really drunk’, ‘I’m not’. “He’s not apologetic but has woken up and said he’s really drunk,” she added.

After Allsford woke, the woman was said to have got his puppy onto the bed with her ‘in an attempt to deter him’, Ms Burgess said. He continued to drink alcohol, although the woman only pretended to, and they had a ‘normal conversation’. “I thought I needed to do whatever it takes to get through the night,” the woman was to tell officers later, the jury heard.

Later in the evening, Allsford was said to have shown the woman pornography. “She told him to go and have a w***. He responded by saying that her hands were softer. She describes this as making her feel sick,” the prosecutor said.

She left the house the next morning, was picked up by her friend and spoke to police later that day. The following day she recorded a ‘voice memo’ in which she described feeling ‘emotionally drained’ and like there was ‘nothing left’.

In interview, Allsford was said to have told police officers that the sexual activity was consensual.

Ms Burgess told the jury that checks of the defendant and complainant’s phones showed a video of him sleeping, taken at around 4.30am. The woman told police she could not remember taking the footage, the court heard.

Allsford, of no fixed address, denies rape. The trial continues.