Retrial for rough sleeper accused of teenager assault

A rough sleeper accused of raping a student after asking her first attacker for a ‘go’ is facing a retrial.

Wesley Roden, 33, allegedly stumbled upon the 18-year-old woman in Victoria Embankment Gardens as she was being abused by another man, who is on the run.

Roden later told police the complainant instigated sexual activity and said she had the ‘time of her life’.

He denied rape and the jury at Southwark Crown Court was discharged today (Tues) after failing to reach a verdict. They had deliberated for four hours and 38 minutes.

The prosecution will announce whether Roden will face a retrial on 22 February.

The complainant and two friends had spent the night out drinking as they made their way from north London to Heaven in Charing Cross on the night of 16 August 2019.

She had also taken cannabis, cocaine and ketamine but split with her friends and was caught on CCTV at 2.40am walking to a small park with the second mystery man.

The art student said she recalled lying on the grass with her underwear and tights pulled down as the first unknown man had sex with her.

She claimed the defendant came over and asked: ‘Can I have a go?’

The teenager said he left after having sex with her and she later awoke on the grass.

Roden told police at the time of the incident he had been sleeping rough for six months and had not had a shower in five months.

Alexander Taylor-Camara, defending, told jurors in her closing speech: ‘Mr Roden says, and has said repeatedly: ‘I did not rape her’.

He added: ‘Drunken consent is still consent, we know being adults, and what with experiences in life that when people do drink it takes away inhibitions.

‘So then when you consent when disinhibited by drink it’s still nevertheless consent.’

Roden, of Warrington, Cheshire, said he spent most of his days ‘begging for money and smoking spice’ after he was arrested and taken to Holborn police station.

He accepted he had unprotected sex with the young woman but denies rape.