A FORMER Dene Court resident has been on trial this week accused of raping a woman in Andover.

Troy Steven James Shanks has appeared in Winchester Crown Court charged with one count of having sex with a female without her consent.

Under the direction of Judge Jane Miller QC, the jury heard how the defendant was alleged to have pinned the victim down on a bed and had intercourse with her against her will.

The 25-year-old accepts he had sex with the woman but denies the charge, claiming the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, consented.

Opening the case for the prosecution on Monday, 11 December, Rob Welling said: “Earlier that evening he had been drinking with her in the company of others and we say he made it clear that he wanted to have sex with her.

“She says he pinned her down, pulled off her clothes and hurt her while he raped her and she repeatedly told him ‘no’.

“He eventually stopped and left.”

Mr Welling told the court that Shanks, whose address at the time was Dene Court, was arrested the following day and gave a no comment interview.

Concluding his opening statement to the jury, Mr Welling said: “If you accept her account, she didn’t consent.

“He, of course, gives a very different account of events.”

On the first afternoon of the trial the jury, made up of seven men and five women, watched a video of the victim as she gave an interview to the police.

She told the officer that she had known of Shanks through friends for ‘around three or four years’ and that before the incident had happened he was acting “really weird”.

Describing what she alleged to have happened, she added: “It was horrible, I was telling him to get off me. I kept saying get off me and he wouldn’t.”

She told the officer that during the incident she attempted to push him away and told him to get off her ‘eight or 10 times’ while the incident took place.

However, on Thursday, 14 December, the court heard the defence argue there were inconsistencies in the victim’s evidence put before the jury.

Claire Wiggett, defending, said: “The evidence of [the victim]; was it the truth, the whole truth and noting but the truth? I say members of the jury it clearly was not.

"The only verdict on the evidence is that that man is not a rapist. He is not guilty."

The trial continues.