Businesswoman told police officer ‘we are not having sex’, court told

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A businesswoman who alleges she was raped by a police officer on their first date has told a court that she told him: “We are not having sex.”

Police Constable David Longden-Thurgood, of Waterlooville, Hampshire, is on trial at Winchester Crown Court accused of the rape of the woman, a mother  in her 30s, at her home in October, 2020.

Giving evidence, the complainant told the jury that she exchanged sexualised messages with the 49-year-old defendant after they met on the Bumble dating app.

She said the messages included Longden-Thurgood sending her a photograph of his erect penis.

The pair agreed for the defendant to come round to her home and she said they sat on a sofa together with her legs on top of him.

She said they began kissing while watching television and she suggested they watched a TV series called Outcry which is about sexual abuse.

The complainant said the defendant put his hand under her t-shirt and she then took off her bra.

She said as they continued kissing, Longden-Thurgood tried to undo her jeans and she stopped him and told him: “We are not having sex.”

She agreed that he took his hands away and they continued kissing until she suggested they go upstairs for a cuddle in bed.

She said that as they went up, she told him: “I said no funny business,” to which he replied: “OK.”

The complainant said that she undressed to her t-shirt and knickers and the defendant to his boxer shorts before they got into bed together.

She said that they were involved in “passionate” kissing while he intimately touched her body and removed her remaining clothes as well as his boxer shorts.

The complainant said she was “participating and enthusiastic” and added: “I was laying there and enjoying it.”

She told the court that she did not touch the defendant and denied that she performed oral sex on him although he did perform it on her, which she consented to.

The complainant said that after the sexual intimacy had started, she had told the defendant that she did not want to have sex.

She said: “He had got off the bed and taken his boxer shorts off, it was at that stage I said ‘we are not having sex’.”

The complainant said that he had then penetrated her while they were being intimate but she had not said no at this stage.

She has told the court that she did not confront him because she was concerned that her children would be woken up.

She said: “It was anything they might have witnessed should they have been awoken that night.”

The complainant said that she again told him that she did not want sex, he told her: “I can’t stop, it feels so good.”

She said that afterwards, she went to the bathroom but did then return to the bed with him after about two minutes.

She said: “I think I was in shock at that point, I didn’t know what to do and how to get out of the situation I was in.

“I was in shock. I wanted him to get out of my house.”

Longden-Thurgood, who has been a police officer for 19 years and serves Hampshire Constabulary, denies the charge and the trial continues.