Oswestry man denies raping woman at party
A 34-year-old man from Oswestry has told a jury he did not rape a woman he had been drinking and dancing with at a friend's party.
Borislav Ivanov claimed that the 48-year-old woman had shown an interest in him before they had sex in a bedroom at the house.
The defendant, a Bulgarian national who has been in the UK since 2008, said he also had consensual sex with the alleged victim a few months later when she invited him into her home.
Ivanov, of Llys Road, Oswestry, denies four allegations of rape and two charges of sexual assault on April 5 and August 24 last year.
Giving evidence through an interpreter at Shrewsbury Crown Court yesterday, Ivanov said he had never been in trouble with the police either in the UK or his native Bulgaria.
He said he first met the woman on April 5 last year during a party.
Ivanov said there was music and they had been dancing together "very close and cuddling" and he had gone upstairs to see if there was an empty room.
"When I came back down she sat on my lap. She kissed me on the neck," he said.
The defendant said they went to the bedroom and had sexual intercourse. They were disturbed by one of his friends, but carried on after he left the room.
Ivanov told the jury when they returned to the kitchen there was no one in the house.
"We had a beer and she sat on my lap again and had a cigarette," he said. She left when his friends returned.
He denied having forced the woman to have sex. "It was with her consent," he claimed.
Ivanov said that on August 24 he had been drinking vodka at his friend's house and was outside having a cigarette when the woman spoke to him from her bedroom window.
He claimed she had pointed to the front door and beckoned him to come in and they had consensual sex in her bedroom.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has alleged that Ivanov had first grabbed her in the bathroom of the house where the party was held and then twice raped her in a bedroom in April last year.
She claimed that Ivanov had again forced himself on her at her home in August after getting into the property through an unlocked door.
The trial continues.
