A PATIENT accused of bombarding a nurse with lewd remarks before sexually assaulting her told a court he had 'a normal' conversation with her about animals and speed dating and never touched her.

Graham Warner, of Goldsmiths Lane, Wallingford, denies one count of sexual assault on a woman while at the John Radcliffe Hospital for an appointment on December 7 last year.

Taking to the witness box as his trial at Oxford Crown Court continued yesterday he told the jury of seven men and five women that while they had a chatty conversation he was not sexually explicit.

He said: "At the end she told me I needed a blood test and she would take me to the [blood testing room] where a nurse would take the blood.

"I was behind her some of the time because there were people down the corridor, I could not walk side-by-side all the time.

"I had to lean over to listen to her because there were other people there."

He said that he was then taken to the blood screening room where be gave blood before leaving the hospital without incident.

Prosecutors maintain that he made a series of lewd remarks at the woman telling her 'I would not kick you out of bed, I would tie you to it'.

He is then alleged to have come up behind her after she left a consultation room and then sexually assaulted her before she raised the alarm to colleagues after he had left the hospital.

He was arrested by police the following day.

The trial continues.