Female students 'flashed' by man in ATIK nightclub in Oxford, court told

Prosecutors say Suranga Wijethunga, 36, had his flies unzipped and his privates exposed when he pressed himself against a young woman’s back on the dancefloor at ATIK nightclub in Park End Street on November 30, 2019.

Opening the case for the Crown on Monday afternoon, prosecutor William Eaglestone told jurors at Oxford Crown Court that the female student had put her hands behind her to stop the person from touching her.

“She felt something soft - not a hand - in her hands. She turned round and she saw this defendant behind her,” Mr Eaglestone said. His flies were said to be undone and he had exposed himself.

Suranga Wijethunga outside Oxford Crown Court

The student was said to have pushed him away then chased after him and shoved him towards the fire exit. CCTV from the nightclub showed him fiddling with his waistband, jurors were told.

Earlier in the night, a friend of the woman said Wijethunga had pushed his hand up her leg under her skirt.

READ MORE: Latest cases from Oxford Magistrates' Court

Mr Eaglestone said: “We, the Crown, say that the evidence all together of the three young women, of the CCTV, of the staff in the nightclub, show what this man was doing.”

Quizzing the woman, who appeared via video link from a courtroom in Norway on Monday afternoon, Mr Eaglestone asked: “When you pushed him that second time how if at all did he react to that?”

She answered: “He reacted, well, by putting his equipment back into his pants; because I could see his hands fumbling around down there.”

Cross examining her, defence barrister Jonathan Coode questioned how much she had had to drink that evening and pointed to discrepancies between her police statement and oral evidence concerning the cramped conditions in the nightclub and what she had seen.

Mr Coode noted she said in her statement that the thing she touched was ‘soft and warm’ but had not said what it was that she had felt.

READ MORE: 'Dishonest developer' tried to get OAP to hand over house

File image of ATIK nightclub in Park End Street, Oxford Picture: ED NIX

She replied: “Well, I said it out loud with the police officer.”

The barrister put it to the woman that she could not be certain that the man who allegedly touched her friend was the same person she ‘frogmarched’ off the dancefloor.

She denied it. “I could recall it was him because he was moving from her to a girl who was standing right next to me.”

Wijethunga, of St Paul’s Crescent, Botley, denies sexual assault and indecent exposure. The trial, which is expected to last up to five days, continues.