Woman woke up naked next to police officer after drunken New Year’s Eve party

A Met Police officer who ‘wouldn’t take no for an answer’ forced himself on a drunken woman at a New Year’s party, a court heard.

The woman had no idea what had happened to her when she woke up in bed naked next to PC Rupert Edwards, 33.

He then made a crude comment about them having sex and she realised she had been raped, Southwark crown court heard.

Jurors heard two other women had accused Edwards of rape in 2022, but the officer was cleared of assaulting one of the women following a trial.

The jury in that case failed reach a verdict in relation to the second woman.

Prosecutor John Clifford said the latest complainant had been at the party with Edwards in Hounslow to see in the 2018 New Year.

‘It is fair to say that as midnight approached that the complainant, the defendant and others were drinking alcohol quite quickly.

‘The complainant has very little memory of what happened the rest of that night apart from the fact that she was aware that when she woke up on the sofa that her friends had been trying to throw chocolates into her mouth as she was asleep.

‘She has very little memory until she woke up the next morning in her bed naked next to the defendant who was also naked.

‘And it was at that point the next morning that the defendant made a crude comment about the fact that they apparently had sexual intercourse.

‘This was not something that the complainant had consented to, nor would she have had the capacity to consent given that she has no memory of what happened from the point at which she recalled friends saying she needed to go home until she woke up the next morning.

‘She was not in the least bit attracted to the defendant.

‘The prosecution’s case is that the woman did not have the capacity to consent because of the amount of alcohol that she had had to drink and that in essence the defendant had taken advantage of her vulnerability in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2018.’

Mr Clifford told jurors the two other women had made rape allegations against Edwards in August and September 2022.

The latest complainant decided to report what had happened to her, the court heard.

‘She knew at that point that she had to report what had happened to her’, said Mr Clifford.

‘The prosecution say that this defendant had a propensity in cases such as these – where consent is the issue – where he does not take no for an answer.’

Edwards, of Bexhill, East Sussex, denies one count of rape.

The trial continues.