A MAN accused of raping an A-level student claims he touched the victim because he was “asked to” by his co-defendant.
Abdi Mohammed, also known as Abdi Mahamed, told Southampton Crown Court that he didn’t rape the female, then 18, and only touched her – despite his DNA being found.
He said that friend Safaraz Khan, on trial with Mohammed, touched the victim when told to after the pair had picked up the teenager outside nightclub Oceana, on Westquay Road.
In cross-examination yesterday, Mohammed, 21, repeatedly denied assaulting her.
Prior to the incident, Mohammed said that he had gone out that night “not looking for sex”. He was playing Pokemon Go outside the nightclub.
He added that he did not ask the victim to have sex with him.
However, Andrew Houston, prosecuting, said: “In the statement it said they were driving and Mohammed leaned over and asked the complainant whether she wanted to have sex and she said that she did.
“But you said you didn’t think anything about sex that night.”
Earlier the trial heard, Khan, 20, had told police officers he thought his friend would “do something crazy like this one day”.
Khan, accused of assisting Mohammed to commit the rape, also said to police in an interview that his co-defendant was “touchy feely” with women.
He is said to have helped carry her into the car and later into his parent’s house on Derby Road, St Mary’s.
As previously reported in the Echo, the then 18-year-old victim left the house without her shoes and ran barefoot to get help at the nearby Royal South Hants Hospital.
Mohammed, of Tennyson Road, Portswood, was later charged with rape, while Khan was charged with assisting in the offence. Both deny the allegations against them.
The trial continues
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