Skegness rape accused denies knowing woman was drunk

The attack is said to have happened in Skegness's Tower Gardens

A man accused of raping a woman in a Skegness park has told jurors he did not know she was drunk.

Saad Gomaa, 34, who is on trial at Lincoln Crown Court, denies raping the woman in the resort's Tower Gardens on 9 June, claiming it was consensual sex.

"I didn't do anything without her consent. She may have [had] a drink, but she wasn't drunk," he said.

Prosecutors have told the jury the woman was in "no fit state" to consent to anything.

Mr Gomaa, an Egyptian national, was on Home Office bail and living at a hotel in the resort at the time of the alleged attack, having arrived from France by sea with other migrants about 40 days earlier.

His alleged victim told the court she told him she did not want sex, but could only remember snippets of the hours leading up to the incident.

She told the jury: "I was extremely drunk. I don't actually remember leaving home."

Prosecutor Clive Stockwell KC suggested the complainant had been followed across the park while "paralytic" and "incapacitated through drink".

CCTV footage played to the court appeared to show the woman falling over shortly before the alleged attack.

"Her knees have just gone there, have they not Mr Gomaa, she has just fallen on the floor?," Mr Stockwell asked.

"She was happy and she wanted to sit on the floor. I just held her in order to carry on walking," Mr Gomaa replied.

Mr Stockwell asked him: "You are saying to the jury that at this point you did not realise she was drunk?"

"She may have [had] a drink and be happy, but she wasn't drunk," he responded.

Mr Gomaa, who had been living in Italy for about four years, said the alleged victim had initiated sex by hugging and kissing him, after he had rolled her a cigarette.

His defence barrister Karen Walton asked: "Did you want to have sex with her because you knew she could not say 'no'?"

He replied: "I've never had sex with someone in such a situation, it is not a human thing to do.

"When I left her she got upset. She wanted me to come back to her. I didn't do anything without her consent," he added.

The trial continues.