SIMONYAN:STUDENT DENIES GANG RAPE BUT ADMITS BEHAVIOUR WAS ‘NASTY’

A Russian student accused of taking part in the gang rape of a teenage girl admitted his behaviour was ‘dirty and nasty’ but insisted she consented.

Armen Simonyan, 19, and three friends are alleged to have put the 18 year-old victim through a two-and-a-half hour ordeal.

Simonyan, Norayr Davtyan, 22, Gregory Andreev Melnikov and Oleg Ivanov, both 23, filmed parts of the encounter using Davtyan’s iPhone, Woolwich Crown Court has heard.

The gang allegedly took advantage of her after she passed out drunk in the halls of residence at a prestigious south London college on January 21.

Simonyan, who had been in the UK for just one week at the time, is said to have had sex with her while they were alone in Davtyan’s room and then watched as the three others did the same.

Jurors heard he had taken part just 12 hours before he was due to meet his girlfriend, who was visiting from St Petersburg.

Giving evidence, he insisted his encounter was consensual and claimed the girl had approached him for sex.

‘I didn’t expect sex with her and I was surprised by it,’ he told the jury.

‘I came into the room and she was there and she initiated it.

‘She wanted it herself. She was excited.

‘It looks dirty and nasty but it’s still consensual sex.’

Police arrested Simonyan at his halls of residence at 4am on January 23.

In interview, he told officers: ‘I am extremely ashamed about what I did because she was very, very drunk and I had a girlfriend.

‘Although she was drunk, she was consenting.

‘But I thought if she wasn’t drunk she would not consent so easily and might think twice about it.

‘For any boy or man of 19, if a girl starts sex and she’s cute and nice he won’t refuse it.’

Simonyan also sought to distance himself from his co-accused, telling jurors: ‘I knew them, but it wasn’t friendship.

‘To be honest, I had not tried to be their close friend.’

He admitted initially lying to the police by saying he had not had sex with the girl or been in the room while the others were having sex with her.

He said: ‘I was scared and I decided myself that I would not tell them that I had something with her.

‘In my mind I always knew that everything between us was consensual and I know that she knows.

‘I thought that if I did not mention it I would just released and continue my studies at the college.’

The girl had attended a disco at the halls of residence on January 21 and ended up at an impromptu party in Davtyan’s room, the court heard.

Witnesses have described how she was seen to vomit and lie down on the floor of the Russian student’s bedroom.

Prosecutors claim video footage recovered from Davtyan’s iPhone taken between 12.38am and 3.10am shows all four men taking advantage of the girl.

In one clip Davtyan is said to describe his alleged victim as a ‘whore’ and a ‘machine for f–king’.

The court heard that the victim reported her ordeal to police the following day.

After their arrest all four men gave differing accounts of the events of that night, but all four denied raping the girl and claimed any sex had been consensual.

Ivanov, Melnikov, Davtyan, Simonyan, all of Bounty House, Stowage, Deptford, southeast London; each deny two counts of rape.

The trial continues.