A man raped a woman in the passenger seat of his Mitsubishi 4x4 despite her sobs for him to stop, a jury heard.

Prosecutors claim Max Warner, 30, carried out the assault after driving the woman to west Oxfordshire beauty spot Foxholes Woods, near Kingham, late on February 8, 2019.

Jurors at Oxford Crown Court were told yesterday that Warner parked up his Mitsubishi Shogun and the pair chatted.

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He was said to have tried to hold the woman’s hand on the late-night drive, although she moved herself away from him as she ‘didn’t want any physical contact’, prosecutor Gabrielle McAvock said yesterday when she opened the case to the jury.

“The defendant parked at a gateway down a rough track. It was away from the road at a place where nobody could see them. The defendant turned the lights off on the vehicle,” she added.

He undid his seatbelt and tried to hug the woman. “[She] was saying no, I don’t want to. The defendant was saying I know you don’t want to.”

Ms McAvock said Warner undid the complainant’s seatbelt and took hold of her hair in an attempt to kiss her. The woman ‘kept saying no, I don’t want this to happen’ while the defendant allegedly replied: “You know you do.”

He was said to have continued his assault.

“The defendant was angry and forceful,” Ms McAvock said. He allegedly told her he was going to ‘rip’ her underwear off.

The jury was told that the alleged victim was ‘screaming at the defendant to get off but he wouldn’t’.

He was said to have ‘aggressively’ touched her sexually before going on to rape her on the passenger seat. He moved over to the driver’s seat and rolled a cigarette, the jury was told.

Ms McAvock said: “The complainant was crying too much to talk. The defendant [who had not used a condom] said ‘don’t worry, I’ll go to the shop to get the morning after pill’.”

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The jury heard that the complainant told Warner that she ‘made it very clear to him that she didn’t want that but he carried on’. The defendant was said to have replied that he ‘knew she didn’t want to [have sex]’.

He drove her home and, later, the pair exchanged text messages. She told him he had ‘scared and terrified her’ and hadn’t stopped when he told him to.

He was arrested at 5.35am the next morning. Interviewed by detectives, he claimed in a prepared statement the pair had consensual sex. He maintained the account when he was shown the text messages by the police.

Warner, of Dawls Close, Ascott-under-Wychwood, denies rape and sexual assault by penetration. The trial continues.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward