Cambridge student ‘raped girl in her halls’

A CAMBRIDGE undergraduate raped another student in her halls of residence after a night out, a court heard yesterday.

Prithvi Sridhar, 21, is said to have offered to accompany the woman home because she was scared of walking alone.

But he then forced himself on his weeping victim, leaving love bites on her neck, the jury was told.

The alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: ‘I told him multiple times that I didn’t want to have sex with him.

‘Tears were running down my face and I was shaking.’

Sridhar, who studied in Bangalore before reading engineering at Queens’ College, and the woman had spent the night out together at club in November 2014.

Prosecutor David Matthew told Cambridge Crown Court there was a ‘fair amount of drinking involved’ and Sridhar had ‘persistently wanted to dance’ with the woman, with the pair ‘hugging and kissing’. Sridhar then accompanied her back to her room, where he ‘thought it was implicit they would have sex’.

Fighting back tears, the woman described how Sridhar began kissing her, so she got into bed fully clothed to avoid his advances. But she said he undressed and climbed in beside her, before pulling off her clothes.

She added: ‘I told him to stop and I tried to push him off.

‘I tried to get up to go to the toilet but he was pulling me down.’

Sridhar denies one count of rape. The trial continues.