TOP WELSH SWIMMER RAPED WOMAN AFTER SHE HAD SEX WITH A FRIEND, COURT TOLD
AWOMAN allegedly raped by a Commonwealth Games swimmer has told a court he came into the room and started taking his clothes off moments after she had had consensual sex with his friend, another top swimmer.
Otto Putland, 24, who represented Wales at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, is accused of raping the woman after a night out in Cardiff in July 2015.
The woman said Putland, who denies the offence, entered the bedroom after she had had consensual sex with his friend, Olympic swimmer Ieuan Lloyd.
The prosecuting barrister told the court the woman was passed on “as if she were chattel”.
In a video recorded interview played at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday, the woman said she met Mr Lloyd, who she had known for around a year, in a club and they later left together.
The woman said: “We left his friend [Putland] in the club with another girl. Once we got back to Ieuan’s house we had sex.”
The woman said afterwards that Mr Lloyd got up and went out of the bedroom, leaving the door open, and she could hear him talking to Putland but she could not hear all of their conversation.
Putland then came and sat on the bed and started taking off his shoes, the court heard.
“When he started taking off his clothes that’s when I text my friend, saying ‘help something might happen’,” the woman said.
“Ieuan closed the door and he left me and Otto.”
The woman said she was lying on the bed wearing a skirt and top, that it was pitch black in the room and Putland started taking his clothes off.
She said: “He lay on top of me and that’s when I was saying ‘you can’t pass me around’ and he said ‘we’re not passing you around.’
“I told him I didn’t want to have sex with him and he continued trying to kiss me.”
The woman said Putland then removed his boxer shorts and she put her hands between her legs to cover her genitals, the court heard.
She said: “He said ‘do you want me to put a condom on?’ so he went and grabbed one and put one on.”
Jurors heard Putland then said it was fine, they did not have to have sex and could just kiss.
The woman said: “So I moved my hand but I was still crying and just kept turning my head away from him.”
The court heard on Wednesday that Putland started having sex with the woman, and stopped when she said she needed to use the bathroom.
“I used my arms to keep him at a distance and push him away”, she said.
“At that point Ieuan walked in to grab something off the side of the table and he just walked straight back out again.”
The court heard that the woman said she told Putland she needed to go to the bathroom and he stopped.
The court heard that she rang friends from the bathroom and the next thing she remembered was hearing her phone ring and being back in the bed with Putland on top of her again.
The court heard the woman’s friends arrived at the address and then left with her in a taxi.
In her opening Janet McDonald, for the prosecution, said the woman saw a forensic doctor two days later but did not report the matter to police until November 2016, initially saying she did not want her mother to know what had happened.
Ms McDonald said: “It was clear in the circumstances to her she could not turn to Ieuan Lloyd for help. He passed her on to his friend as if she were chattel.”
Putland, of Dinedor, near Hereford, denies one count of rape.
The trial continues.