Sailor did lap dance for officer ‘who then raped her’
A ROYAL Navy officer raped a female sailor in her hotel room after she gave him a lap dance, a court martial heard.
Lieutenant Nicholas Robinson, 28, is said to have repeatedly pestered her for sex after she invited him up.
The alleged victim agreed to perform an erotic dance for him on the condition he stopped trying to kiss her. But Robinson ‘did not take no for an answer’ and pinned the woman down before attacking her, the hearing was told.
The alleged incident happened in 2014 in Bahrain, where their frigate was docked in port, after a party attended by scores of navy staff. Portsmouth Military Court heard the pair discussed sadomas-
‘I like to be submissive’
ochism and bondage at the Radisson Blu Hotel.
The woman thought they were talking about plans for a future encounter, but Robinson was persistent and held her to the bed, it is alleged.
Prosecutor David Edwards said: ‘At this stage, she was tired of the perseverance and said “stop it” and tried to push him off her. She then became scared that he was not joking. He started to undress her and it is at this point he allegedly sexually assaulted her, forced her to perform [a sex act] on him and then raped her.’
Mr Edwards said the pair fell asleep on the bed in her room because she ‘did not know where else she would be able to go’ that night. He added: ‘Her next mem- ory is she woke and found him having sex with her again.’
After Robinson left, the woman allegedly sent him a message on Facebook, but did not report the matter immediately.
When interviewed, Robinson, who is based at the Abbey Wood MoD site in Bristol, claimed the sex was consensual on both occasions. He denies three counts of rape and one of sexual assault.
The court martial heard that Robinson had danced with the woman at a party earlier in the evening before being invited back to her hotel room. She spurned his efforts to kiss her, saying she was ‘not in the right place in her head’. But Robinson stripped to his boxer shorts and got on to the bed, it was said.
The female sailor said they discussed a possible meeting in March with the ‘implication [that] we would meet for something sexual’. She added: ‘He started to say he really wanted a lap dance from me. He just went on and on trying to assure me that if I did this one thing, he would just let it drop.
‘I believed him.’ The woman added that she ‘just wanted him to stop trying’ and agreed to dance for him for five minutes before putting her clothes back on.
When they resumed chatting, the conversation was sexual. She added: ‘We were talking about bondage and sadomasochism because I said I was up for trying anything. I thought we were talking about March.
‘I said that in bondage terms, I like to be submissive and we talked about safe words. I said I always use words like don’t or stop because they cannot be misunderstood.’ Mr Edwards said that it was at this point that the assault occurred. The trial continues.