A rough sleeper who allegedly stumbled upon a rape in London and then joined in boasted to police afterwards, a court has heard.
Wesley Roden came across the victim in London’s West End and is said to have asked her attacker ‘for a go’.
He later referred to the 18-year-old as a ‘twisted slag’ during an interview with police officers.
The jury at court on Friday heard how Roden, 33, was ‘jovial’ and boasted to officers ‘she had the time of her life’.
Roden – who had been living on the streets for a ‘considerable time’ – denies the charges against him.
PC Ryan McKinley told Southwark Crown Court ‘he was a little bit too jovial about it. Like it was banter.’
Roden fist bumped the other male while he was raping the girl and said ‘get me involved’, according to McKinley.
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Prosecutor Ben Temple told the jury that when Roden was questioned by police he suggested she was ‘an enthusiastic partner who instigated sexual activity’.
‘She had the time of her life’, he added.
Roden – who has twenty previous criminal convictions to his name, including assault, theft, harassment, criminal damage and threatening behaviour – referred to the young woman with vile slurs.
He said she was a ‘slut’ and told him she had sex with strangers every weekend and was a ‘twisted little slag’, according to Temple.
Roden pleaded not guilty to the rape, which took place on 16 August 2019.
The alleged assault took place as the young woman was out drinking with two female friends, travelling from the outskirts of north London to Charing Cross nightclub Heaven.
The victim was refused entry due to intoxication, with police tests later finding she had consumed a cocktail of drugs, including cannabis, cocaine and ketamine.
She separated from her friends, who tried to sober up in a nearby McDonalds, and was filmed on CCTV walking from Heaven with an unknown male to the small enclosed park at around 2:40 am.
A video-recorded statement by the teenager was played to the jury.
‘The snapshot I have in my head is lying on the grass in a park with a man over me and feeling pain around the hips,’ said the art student, confirming she had little memory of how she got there.
‘I remember lying on the grass and my underwear and tights were around my ankles and my legs were pushed up.
‘The first man, I don’t remember his face. I could feel him having sex with me and a pain in my hips.
‘It felt surreal.’
A police investigation is still underway to trace the first perpetrator of the alleged sexual assault against her, which took place in Victoria Embankment Gardens.
He is still wanted by police.
The woman’s testimony continued: ‘Another man came over with a beard and said: ‘Can I have a go?’ and the first man says: “That’s a bit weird” and then said: ‘Once I leave you can do what you want with her.’
‘The second man looked at me and saw I wouldn’t do anything or stop it.
‘He was over me and then he was gone. I woke up on the grass and realised everything that had happened’, she added.
When the woman regained consciousness, she ran and started banging on the park gate, telling a passerby she needed help.
‘I don’t remember how I got to the park, I did not know where I was or where my friends were and I was scared and confused.’
The trial continues.
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