City worker ‘raped student in taxi after night out’

‘I was waking up and thinking, “I don’t really want this to happen”. I was embarrassed’

A DELOITTE analyst raped a University of Cambridge student on the back seat of a taxi after a night out, a court heard.

Gerald Laryea, 25, is accused of attacking the 21-year-old after the pair attended a rooftop party at the Roundhouse music venue in Chalk Farm, north London.

He has pleaded not guilty to rape, attempted rape and sexual assault, claiming that the complainant consented to sex during the journey to Lewisham, south-east London.

Mr Laryea, a University of Leicester business management economics graduate who works for the financial advisory firm Deloitte, is on trial at Woolwich Crown Court.

Jurors heard Mr Laryea, of Milton Keynes, and the woman were part of a larger group at the bar on July 31, 2015.

Mr Laryea said the complainant put her hands down his trousers during the event and CCTV showed them walking together to a bar opposite the venue. The complainant denies groping Laryea, the court heard.

CCTV footage showed the pair holding hands in the bar, which they left in a black cab.

“I remember him pulling me forward and taking my underwear off,” the woman told the jury. “I think he was kneeling on the floor.”

She said Mr Laryea performed a sex act on her. “I was only half-aware of what was happening,” she added. “I was waking up and thinking, ‘I don’t really want this to happen’. I was embarrassed.”

She told the court the defendant then tried to rape her. “I could feel him trying to do that,” she said. “I have a half-formed feeling that he turned me over. He had sex with me that I did not consent to, that I was too drunk to consent to.” She said she did not say “no” or protest and that she was simply trying to forget about what was going on.

The trial continues.