CLEARED! The woman accused of forcing man to have sex
She tells jury: I couldn’t have done it, I’m not Superwoman
A COLLEGE student accused of forcing a man half her weight to have sex was cleared yesterday, after telling jurors it did not happen because she is too ‘lazy’ to be on top for 15 minutes.
Imogen Brooke also said she could not have given her alleged victim a love bite – which a court heard was so severe that it looked like she had ‘strangled’ him – because she ‘can’t multi-task’.
And she claimed she would not have been able to tug the alleged victim over on to his back in bed as he claimed because ‘I’m not Superwoman’.
The court heard that Miss Brooke – who turned 31 yesterday – was ‘in the mood’ and wouldn’t take no for an answer when she got on top of her partner after they had been drinking.
But after a four-day trial, the jury at Southampton Crown Court cleared Miss Brooke of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent at her flat in Southampton. She burst into tears in the dock and thanked jurors after they took just one hour to find her not guilty.
Miss Brooke met the man online and jurors were told the then 24-stone woman was a ‘lot bigger and stronger’ than him.
But Miss Brooke told jurors she was conscious of her weight, meaning she would not have dragged the man into position and climbed on top of him, as the alleged victim claimed. She said: ‘I’m not comfortable with my body, because I’m bigger than most people.
‘I’m a big girl and I’m not confident of my weight, or any part of my body.
‘I weigh 22 stone now but at the time I weighed 24 stone. For me to be on top, I have to get on, balance to the side and lift up my belly.’
Miss Brooke was alleged to have ‘pinned’ down the man, who she met online, before giving him the ‘non-consensual’ love bite.
The man told police he had just wanted to go to sleep, but claimed Miss Brooke told him: ‘You may be saying no, but your d*** is saying yes’. Jurors heard she took a picture of the bruise after he had fallen asleep and sent it to him on a messaging app.
She said the love bite occurred while they were sitting on her bed, kissing, and not during a sexual assault as the man had alleged, adding: ‘I can’t multi-task.’
She said that after kissing the man, she went to check on some food she had put in the oven, during which time her alleged victim fell asleep.
Miss Brooke added: ‘I went and sorted the onion rings out – I would’ve checked if they were cooked or needed a bit longer and put mayonnaise on the plate.
‘I ate them all to myself because he was asleep.’
Miss Brooke told the court that the next day she had messaged the man telling him he was ‘soundo’ (fast asleep) when she returned from the kitchen and had had to eat the onion rings alone.
Asked by defence barrister Audrey Archer whether she forced the man to have sex with her and pulled down his boxer shorts, she said: ‘I didn’t.’
Miss Archer asked whether she had tugged at the man’s arm to get him to lie on his back in the lead-up to the alleged assault. She replied: ‘No – I’m not Superwoman.’
And asked if it was true she had been on top for the alleged period of 15 minutes, Miss Brooke said: ‘No, 15 minutes on top, I wouldn’t – I’m very lazy. I had no sex on top for any duration.’
The alleged victim told police he felt ‘violated’ by the incident.
He added: ‘She’s quite a lot bigger and stronger than me and I just couldn’t do anything about it.
‘I can’t move her when she’s on top because she’s a lot heavier than me. She’s about twice my body weight – so I can’t move. I wanted it to end. I just gave up because she wasn’t going to listen to me. I said what I said but it was going in one ear and out the other.’
He said in his evidence that he still got flashbacks of the night, adding: ‘I remember the entire night.
‘I remember it because I can’t get it out of my head.’
The man accepted that he had an erection, but said he didn’t want to have one.
Prosecutor Robert Bryan told jurors it was a ‘misconception’ that a sexual offender was male and the victim of a sexual offence was female.
He added: ‘Physical arousal is wholly separate to consent. The two might run in tandem but might run on separate tracks. Just because you are physically aroused doesn’t mean you want it.’
Judge Brian Forster KC told the jury: ‘I promised you an interesting trial – I hope it has been just that.’
‘Lovebite? No, I can’t multi-task’ ‘I’m too lazy for 15 minutes on top’