A woman allegedly raped by Worcestershire all-rounder Alex Hepburn broke down in tears in court on Tuesday after being cross-examined about her actions leading up to the alleged attack.
The 23-year-old cricketer, who denies two counts of rape, told the court she was initially asleep and wrongly thought she was having sex with Hepburn’s former Worcestershire teammate Joe Clarke.
During the second day of the trial the alleged victim rejected the notion that her memory of the incident was “not completely clear”, and when asked whether she was “fairly drunk” on the night in question in April 2017, the complainant said she was “tipsy but well aware of what I was doing”.
The complainant began crying when Hepburn’s barrister, Michelle Heeley QC, asked whether the night was “a bit hazy”, which prompted the judge to agree to a 15-minute adjournment.
ICYMI: The jury were told of a group chat found on Hepburn’s phone that was set up to record details of the women its members had slept with.
“It detailed the game that these young men engaged in…This game had precious little to do with cricket.”https://t.co/bmnAL9ZfSM
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) January 8, 2019
Heeley suggested the woman moved around the bed for a period of at least 20 minutes, and asked: “Nothing that you had said or done would have told Mr Hepburn that you weren’t enjoying this sex?”
The woman replied: “I pushed him off when I realised, but before, no … I was asleep. From what I can remember I was lying still on my back.”
Clarke, who signed for Nottinghamshire at the end of the 2018 season, later told the court he had consensual sex with the woman before vomiting in a bathroom, where he fell asleep. The next thing he recalled was waking up to hear the woman claiming to have been raped by Hepburn.
[breakout id=”0″][/breakout]“I was very shocked,” the 22-year-old said in response to questioning from the prosecutor, Miranda Moore QC. “I put my head in my hands and just questioned it.” Clarke, who confirmed he still regarded Hepburn as his best mate, described his friend’s immediate response: “He just said no and shook his head.”
The trial continues.