A welder accused of a ‘strikingly similar’ series
A welder accused of a ‘strikingly similar’ series of date rape attacks made nearly identical denials to police each time he was quizzed, the Old Bailey heard today.
(thurs)
Each time Nicholas Edwards, 39, was arrested he detailed romantic encounters in which the women were happy to romp with him, often on their first night out together.
Edwards told detectives during interviews that his accusers had lied, and they had consented to sex with him.
He denies one charge of raping a 25-year-old mother, from Birmingham, in August 1998 at his flat in southeast London.
But chilling similarities have emerged from the cases of five other woman who each claim to have been attacked by him during the last 16 years.
In a highly unusual case the prosecution have been allowed to call five other complainants to show it is not just one woman’s word against his.
In each case Edwards befriended them and then put them through sex ordeals either at his home or in his car.
On two occasions he struck after parking up in the same churchyard, the jury heard.
And two of the complainant were raped in High Wycombe, Bucks in the 1980s, where he used to live.
Edwards insists that all his alleged victims consented to his sexual advances.
He is said to have raped Miss J in May 1989 in his car after they met at the Podium Nightclub.
But quizzed at Lewisham Police Station he told police: ‘I never forced her to have intercourse.
I don’t know why she’s made this allegation against me.
‘She didn’t desist or anything like that or else I would have stopped.
‘She was responding and she never complained.
‘
The prosecution then read out transcripts of an interview in July 1993 in which he denied raping Miss L in a Battersea churchyard.
He told detectives that while they sat in his car, the woman had unbuttoned her dress, and allowed him to kiss her breasts.
When told that he had locked the car doors to prevent her from escaping, and that he gripped her neck to stop her struggling, he protested:
‘That’s a total lie!’
He denied knowing that the woman was a virgin.
After unsuccessfully searching his car for condoms, Edwards claimed she had been happy to have unprotected sex with him.
Edwards was arrested by local police after the victim persuaded him to drive her to a local store on the pretence of getting some food.
But he concluded the interview still defiantly protesting his innocence:
‘I would like to say that I didn’t rape her.
‘
A 33-year-old nurse claimed that
Edwards is also said to have raped Miss R, a 33-year-old nurse, in the same graveyard.
But he told police that she had pulled up her tight lycra dress and allowed him to have sex with her.
Edwards, of (48) Wirrall House, Sydenham Estate, Wells Park Road, Sydenham denies one charge of rape on August 31, 1998.
The trial continues when the prosecution will complete its case.
ends
