‘I told him to stop,’ woman tells gym Christmas party rape trial

AWOMAN who accused a teacher of raping her at a gym Christmas party denies lying about the attack.

She told a court she repeatedly told her alleged attacker “No” throughout but he did not stop.

Jack Crosse, 32, denies raping two women at the Willpower Weightlifting gym in Pontypool on December 13 and early hours of December 14 in 2019.

It is alleged he had consensual oral sex with the first victim but forced her to have vaginal sex, which she did not want.

The defendant, a maths teacher at Llanishen High School in Cardiff, is also accused of raping a second victim at the gym, which had been turned into a makeshift bar and disco for a Christmas party.

Crosse, of Heol Ysgubor, Caerphilly, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape.

A trial at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday saw the first victim, who has lifelong anonymity, cross examined by Crosse’s barrister Kevin Seal.

He said: “You’ve lied about the allegations you made against Mr Crosse haven’t you? You lied to the police, you’ve lied to your mother about it, you’ve lied to (gym owner) Mr Holly and the other members of the gym you’ve spoken to and you’ve lied to this court.”

The victim replied: “No I have not... I’ve told the truth the whole way through.”

The alleged victim told the court she first saw Crosse on the dancefloor and described him as “dancing like a robot” and appearing intoxicated.

When it was put to her by Mr Seal that she fancied him, she said: “Absolutely not.”

She said she later spoke to the defendant and he seemed like an “OK, nice guy” but she was “genuinely shocked” by the fact he was teacher due to way he was behaving.

Later in the evening, the witness said Crosse grabbed her and kissed her. She said: “I was quite surprised by it, it just happened and it was short lived... I was trying to be like ‘No thanks, stop it’.”

She denied “snogging” the defendant, as it was put by Mr Seal.

She recalled being “picked up” by Crosse and being taken to a red brick building but said this wasn’t done against her will.

She said: “Myself and Jack were kissing but I said I needed to go. And so as we carried on we did continue and it went further for me giving him oral but this is when things got too much and too forceful, and I said no. I didn’t want it to continue any more.”

While she admitted she consensually gave Crosse oral sex, the victim said he grabbed her, turned her around, pulled down her clothes and raped her.

Mr Seal said: “You willingly and consensually bent over and allowed the defendant to have sex with you didn’t you?”

The victim said: “No.”

She said Crosse penetrated her four times and added: “It was me trying to stop him. I said ‘No, no, no. Stop, I’ve got to go’.”

Mr Seal said: “When you said stop, you’ve got to go, he stopped.”

The victim denied this.

She added: “No, when I told him to stop he was still doing it... I said ‘No’ so it shouldn’t have happened.”

Mr Seal said: “What are you doing to try and stop him doing it?”

The victim said: “Trying to get away but I was wedged between a shutter and table.”

The barrister added: “None of the sex was consensual at all?”

The victim replied: “No, I don’t think so, I was saying no from the beginning... I had oral sex consensually and this [the penetration] is when it wasn’t consensual afterwards... To have this done to me was quite a shock and I was unsure how to feel.”

The trial continues.