A SOLDIER accused of raping a 15-year-old girl behind a school classroom says she repeatedly turned down his pleas for sex but then consented.

Private Craig Lovitt, 19, said the girl, who cannot be named, put a condom on him and did not resist sex despite telling him "No" three times as they walked through the grounds of Bicester Community College.

Lovitt, who has been in a relationship with a girlfriend for four years, denies rape and in a continuing trial at Oxford Crown Court yesterday told how he met the girl in the early hours of October 4 last year.

He was with a friend, Joe Bishop-Ford, and the men were staying at Lovitt's family home in Bicester while on weekend Army leave from the 27 Transport Regiment, part of the Royal Logistics Corps, based in Aldershot, Hampshire. The girl had just said goodnight to her boyfriend when she was approached by the men, who had been drinking in Bicester town centre and were walking home after visiting a friend of Lovitt's.

He said he did not know the girl's name or age but had seen her face somewhere before, and the three of them were talking. "She seemed to be just joking with us really, laughing with us," said Lovitt, "and I was chatting her up."

Lovitt offered to walk her home and Mr Bishop-Ford let them go on alone.

While they were walking through the grounds of the college, Lovitt asked the girl for sex three times but she said no and that she wanted to go home.

He said: "She said no but in a jokey way.

"I asked her whether she would come round the back of the geography building with me and she said yes.

"I thought that she might have sex with me if she went round there. I did not force her or threaten her to go there.

"I asked her to put a condom on me and she agreed.

"She did not say she wanted to go. My thoughts were that she was giving her consent and that she wanted to have sex."

They had sex, which he said lasted one or two minutes.

Afterwards, he gave her a peck on the cheek, before they went their separate ways.

The next morning, Lovitt said, he felt guilty for cheating on his girlfriend.

The trial continues.

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