Man denies giving girl cocaine and raping her

Six men are on trial at Newcastle Crown Court

A man has denied raping or supplying drugs to a teenage girl, or taking her to a flat where she was raped by multiple men as part of gang, saying: "It never happened."

Codrin Dura, 27, is one of six men who have denied offences against six girls, aged between 13 and 16, in Gateshead between 2015 and 2019.

Newcastle Crown Court was previously told Mr Dura had driven the 15-year-old girl to a flat where she was given cocaine, wine and vodka before being abused by several men.

Mr Dura said he had a sexual relationship with the girl, but had never taken her to any flat or had group sex with her.

He moved to the Gateshead from Romania in 2013, when he was about 15 or 16 years old, the court heard.

He said he was 20 when he met the girl in March 2019, while he was playing football with friends in Saltwell Park.

Mr Dura told the court he was attracted to her, that he "wanted a relationship" and that they started messaging on Snapchat soon after.

"She told me she was 17," he said.

'Nobody else was around'

Mr Dura said they met up a "few times" over the next two or three weeks where they had sex on the back seat of his car on occasion.

When his lawyer Josh Normanton asked if they were boyfriend and girlfriend, Mr Dura replied: "Sort of."

The court previously heard the girl said she was offered cocaine for the first time by Mr Dura in his car, before he raped her and dropped her off at a bus stop with a bag of cocaine and £40 in cash.

Mr Dura told the court that did not happen and that the pair had never discussed cocaine.

He said the relationship ended after a few weeks when he found out the girl was also seeing fellow defendant Leonard Paun, with whom he had a friendship.

He told the court he did not see her after that point.

When asked if he had ever raped the girl, or asked her to have sex with others, he said: "No, I never."

He said: "The only times I was with her was just me and her, nobody else was around."

Mr Dura also denied offences relating to another girl when she was 13 to 15 years old.

He denied raping or blackmailing her, when he was aged between 15 to 17.

Mr Dura told the court the pair were in a relationship at the time and that he "loved her".

The defendants are all from Gateshead and the allegations against them are:

• Codrin Dura, 27, in relation to two girls, denies eight counts of rape, three counts of sexual activity with a child, attempted rape, sexual assault, blackmail, arranging the commission of a child sex offence and supplying a class A drug

• Leonard Paun, 23, in relation to two girls, denies five counts of rape, sexual activity with a child, two counts of arranging the commission of a child sex offence, supplying Class A drugs, sexual assault and distributing indecent photographs of a child

• Ionut Mihai, 28, denies three counts of rape in relation to one girl

• Bogdan Gugiuman, 44, denies four counts of rape and one of supplying a Class A drug in relation to one girl

• Klaudio Aleksiu, 28, denies two counts of rape and supplying a Class A drug in relation to one girl

• Stefan Ciuraru, 22, in relation to five girls, denies four counts of sexual assault, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and sexual activity with a child

The trial continues.