A woman who was allegedly raped by a police officer has told a jury she did not try to force him off her because her children were asleep in the house and she worried about what he would do if she stopped him.
The alleged victim, a businesswoman in her 30s, said she developed romantic feelings for David Longden-Thurgood, 48, after being matched with him on a dating app.
Jurors at Winchester crown court have heard that Longden-Thurgood, a Hampshire police officer and divorced father of three, told her before they met in person that he would protect her “for life”.
Giving evidence, the woman said that when they met at her house, they kissed on her sofa as they watched a Netflix show.
She said she told him: “I’m not having sex with you tonight.” She asked if he wanted to go upstairs to cuddle and continue watching the show, warning him “no funny business”, but a few minutes later found him in just his underwear in her bed. She said: “I was not touching him … He was the only one doing the touching.”
The woman said he then raped her. “I had already said before that we are not having sex, I definitely said it when we were in the bedroom. He didn’t take no for an answer, and at this point I was concerned about my children.
“Not [concerned] about harm to my children, but what they could have been subjected to witness, I don’t know what he could have done if I tried to force him off me. I was not enjoying it … I had not verbally consented to it, I had said I didn’t want to have sex.”
The woman said that before the attack “I was quite reassured by the fact he was a police officer”.
Speaking of the aftermath of the alleged attack, she told the court: “I didn’t know how to get him out of my house. I lay on the bed, on the edge away from him.”
The day after the alleged rape, the court heard, the woman told a friend what had happened when they were picking their children up from school.
In messages to Longden-Thurgood, the woman said: “I just kept saying: ‘No, we are not having sex’. I didn’t mind a spoon and a bit of play but I think you intended on coming here and having sex, it got to the point where I may as well stop saying no.”
The officer, who has served for 19 years, told her she was “miserable” and “stroppy”, said she was “blowing it out of proportion”, and insisted they move on and go out for a drink.
Longden-Thurgood, of Waterlooville, denies rape. The trial continues.
