Two appear in court over rape in park (From Oxford Mail)

Two appear in court over rape in park

9:10am Friday 14th September 2012 in News

A CAR salesman and an unemployed carpenter have appeared in court charged with raping a woman in an Oxford park.

Julio Dos-Santos, 28, and Takudzwa Hunda, 26, are alleged to have had sex with a 20-year-old woman against her will in Headington’s Bury Knowle Park on Tuesday night.

The Zimbabwean-born pair appeared at Oxford Magistrates’ Court yesterday each charged with two counts of rape and one of a serious sexual assault.

Neither man was required to enter a plea and the case was transferred to Oxford Crown Court.

Solicitors for both defendants said they would deny the charges and fight to clear their names.

Hunda, a British national, lives in Casterbridge Road, Swindon, and works for the Hartwell car dealership in Abingdon, his solicitor Jan Matthews said.

Kirsty Leggott, for Dos-Santos, said her client, a Portuguese national, lives with his partner and their disabled three-year-old son in Nightingale Avenue, Greater Leys, Oxford.

District Judge Tim Pattinson remanded both men in custody to appear at Oxford Crown Court a week today.