REED: CURRENCY DEALER ‘TRIED TO RAPE EX-CLASSMATE’ AFTER SHE LET HIM STAY IN HER ROOM

A former private schoolboy tried to rape an ex-classmate after she let him stay the night at her university halls, the Old Bailey heard.

Archie Reed, 20, pulled off the woman’s pyjama bottoms and knickers and pounced on her while she was asleep next to him, it is said.

When she woke up, she allegedly felt Reed groping her and screamed for him to get out of her bedroom.

She had met Reed after a drinks reception hosted by top law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, and they spent the rest of the evening drinking wine at a pub in Warren Street.

The woman, who was studying in London at the time, invited currency consultant Reed to stay the night as the Tube had stopped running, said prosecutor Dianne Chan.

She said Reed pulled off her clothes, molested her and tried to rape her after she had gone to sleep.

‘She awoke to find Mr Reed on top of her and facing her’, she said.

‘She said she immediately told him to get off her and get out – she didn’t want to see him again.

‘He grabbed his things and he left.

‘She then noticed how her knickers and her pyjama shorts were off her and on the floor.’

Reed then deluged the woman with texts messages and calls, trying to apologise for what had happened, jurors were told.

He sent a message after leaving her flat, saying: ‘I’m so sorry. I owe you everything, I’m so sorry.

‘Just give me a phone call to explain myself. I wasn’t doing it all I promise.’

Reed and his alleged victim had gone to school together, at a top independent school that cannot be identified for legal reasons.

‘They met up because they wanted to catch up on their news’, said Ms Chan.

‘Their friendship was platonic, they were only friends.’

They agreed to meet on October 8 last year at the Northumberland Arms near Tottenham Court Road, and shared two bottles of wine until the early hours of the next morning.

‘She said he could stay the night, and this was not an unusual offer because she said in the past they had topped and tailed – slept together – on a sofa’, said Ms Chan.

They held hands on the 20-minute walk home, something she said was usual for her with male friends, and they stopped off for a bite to eat along the way.

At her halls of residence, she offered Reed a duvet and a pillow, but said he could get into bed with her instead of sleeping on the floor.

After the alleged attack, she called her boyfriend in ‘hysterics’ and woke up a flatmate to tell her what had happened, said Ms Chan.

‘She said I’ve just been raped by Archie’, she said.

‘She woke up to find Archie on top of her having sex with her.’

The alleged attack was reported the following day, when she went with her boyfriend to a chemist to get the morning-after pill.

Reed, after his arrest, told detectives they had kissed and ‘spooned’ in bed, and said she had encouraged him to stay for an extra bottle of wine at the pub.

He said he offered to sleep on the floor, but she said he should lie next to her

Reed also said they had got undressed in front of each other before getting into bed.

‘She moved her bottom closer to him, so he thought – to use his words – he would go for it’, said Ms Chan.

‘The Crown say it was without her consent because she was asleep when he saw the opportunity to sexually abuse her.

‘He also removed her pyjama bottoms – that was just short of him going to have sexual intercourse with her.’

Reed, a currency consultant at Smart Currency Business based in Hammersmith, was charged in March this year and is now facing a two-week trial.

Reed, who lives in Hammersmith, west London, denies attempted rape and assault by penetration.

The trial continues.

ENDS