Man is accused of raping ‘women he invited to shed’

‘It was obvious there was no party. There were no other people in the shed’

AMAN is accused of raping a woman as she slept and another in a shed after nights out in Hyndburn.

Thomas Nichols is standing trial at Burnley Crown Court charged with two rapes.

The 28-year-old, of Belfield Road, Accrington, denies the accusations and said in both cases the sex was ‘consensual’.

Prosecutor Anya Horwood said Mr Nichols met the first complainant in the early hours of a morning as she was having a cigarette with a friend in the street.

The jury heard that the defendant approached them asking for cigarette papers and then joined them at the friend’s house for a drink.

After 30 minutes Mr Nichols asked the complainant and her friend if they would like to go to a party with him and he took them back to his shed, it was claimed.

Ms Horwood said: “It was obvious to them that there was no party there. There were no other people in the shed.”

The court heard there was a camp bed and lots of fish tanks and both women were ‘ unnerved by that and felt a little uncomfortable’.

Ms Horwood said the women decided to go the complainant’s house and they allowed Mr Nichols to join them.

They bought some alcohol from a garage and got a taxi to her home and all three were drinking in the lounge. The court was told that Mr Nichols then started making comments about the complainant’s hips and legs.

Ms Horwood said: “She was making it abundantly plain that she had a boyfriend and had no sexual interest in Mr Nichols.”

The prosecutor added that the complainant had been drinking for several hours and was ‘very tired and affected by alcohol’ and began to fall asleep.

When her friend said she would go home the complainant asked her to take Mr Nichols with her but he decided to stay.

Ms Horwood said the complainant next remembers waking up on the sofa and no longer wearing her trousers. She said: “Mr Nichols was holding her on her stomach and having sex with her.

“She immediately swore at him. She told him to get out. She screamed and Mr Nichols ran from the property.”

Police were contacted and DNA found on her underwear matched Mr Nichols. When the defendant was arrested he denied raping her and said it was ‘consensual sex’. Mr Nichols is accused of raping a second woman after meeting her at a bar in Accrington.

Ms Horwood said she began talking to the defendant outside in the early hours and he asked her to go back with him.

The complainant said she was ‘affected by alcohol’ and a married woman and ‘couldn’t do it’, the court heard.

The prosecutor told the jury that ‘against [the complainant’s] better judgement’ she went with him to his shed and that ‘she was concerned but he was reassuring’.

When Mr Nichols went to get them some drinks he returned in his boxer shorts and she ‘felt uncomfortable and said she needed to go home’, the jury heard.

The court heard that Mr Nichols took her arm and began kissing her hand but she pulled away and said she needed to go home. The prosecutor said Mr Nichols ‘was insisting, told her she came back here and then swore at her’. The complainant told Mr Nichols she was ‘very affected by alcohol’ and ‘trying to tell him to stop and trying to push him away’, the court heard.

Ms Horwood said Mr Nichols then raped her.

The court heard that when police later arrested the defendant he told officers that ‘he had taken a young lass back and they had sex’ and that he told police that it was ‘consensual sex’. Nichols denies two count of rape.

Proceeding