Match.com date accused of rape over 'vasectomy lie'

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Jason LawranceImage source, Derbyshire Police
Image caption,

Jason Lawrance is on trial accused of nine charges

A woman has told a rape trial how she became pregnant after a man she met on Match.com lied to her about having had a vasectomy.

Jason Lawrance is accused of raping the woman even though she agreed to have sex with him.

He has already been convicted of raping and assaulting other women he met through the dating site.

The 54-year-old is now on trial on nine further charges relating to six more women, which he denies.

The woman who said she became pregnant by Lawrance slept with him in July 2014.

In the prosecution's opening, Clive Stockwell QC said her consent to sex was "obtained by a deception" and was therefore "not true consent".

Lawrance previously told her in a text message he had undergone "the snip", and the woman said Lawrance made the same claim shortly before they slept together.

Mr Stockwell asked her: "Would you have had sexual intercourse with him if he had not have a vasectomy?"

The woman replied: "Absolutely not; unless he had other protection."

'I have a confession'

He texted her the following day, saying "I have a confession. I'm still fertile. Sorry. xxx".

The woman told Nottingham Crown Court: "I was absolutely gobsmacked that anybody could do such a thing."

The woman took emergency contraception but this did not work, and she later had an abortion.

Lawrance, previously of Leicestershire and Hampshire, denies the following charges:

  • Seven counts of rape

  • One charge of sexual assault

  • One charge of assault by penetration.

One of the other women told jurors how Lawrance raped her twice in his van while they were on a first date in January 2014.

She could not remember if she said the words "no" or "stop", but said it would have been clear she was not consenting as Lawrance said "not long now" and "good girl" during the second rape.

"It was never consensual," she said.

The trial continues.

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