I was rude but didn’t assault student, says man sued for £100k

‘I was surprised but I went along with it’

A MAN being sued for £100,000 for raping a student told a court yesterday he had been ‘rude’ but had not carried out a sex assault.

Stephen Coxen admitted the time he spent with his accuser had become upsetting, but he denied raping her.

The 23-year-old told the court he was ‘really shocked’ in 2014 when he initially found out the claim was being made against him.

In a landmark case, Coxen, from Bury, Lancashire, is being sued by the woman who accuses him of raping her in St Andrews, Fife, after a night out in September 2013.

Coxen denied the charges and in November 2015 a jury found the case against him not proven, a verdict of acquittal.

His alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has brought a civil action to the Personal Injury Court in Edinburgh.

Coxen was giving evidence in his defence when he was quizzed on his actions on the night he met the student during St Andrews University Freshers Week. He said he had been out with some friends to the Lizard Lounge venue when the alleged victim tapped him on the shoulder and began kissing him.

‘I was quite surprised but I just went along with it,’ he said, adding that he was happy and they were ‘snogging’ passionately.

He told how they later ended up at the woman’s flat after he was thrown out of the club following an altercation with a group of boys.

‘She seemed to be enjoying my company,’ he told the court, adding that they got undressed in her bedroom and ‘started having intercourse’.

He said that at some point she pulled away and when he asked if she was OK, she nodded, but that something then happened that caused him to stop having sex: ‘I got dressed and I left the property quite quickly.’ Asked under crossexamination how he felt about the way he reacted at the time, when he was 18, Coxen replied: ‘Immature, stupid.’

Asked if he regretted the way he had behaved, he said: ‘I obviously apologise for that, [it was] very rude.’

During cross-questioning, the court heard that Coxen’s position was that the woman had lied about him forcing her to perform a sex act.

Simon Di Rollo, QC, representing the pursuer, said: ‘The doctors have accepted her account, saying she was the victim of a life-threatening event. She’s been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder... She’s lied to them as well?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Coxen. ‘It seems quite an amazing thing to lie about to so many people and for so long,’ Mr Di Rollo continued. He suggested the reason Coxen left abruptly that night was ‘because she was upset and you had raped her’.

Coxen replied: ‘If I was raping her then why would I care if she was upset?’