A York community campaigner and former city council election candidate allegedly raped a young woman twice on the same night, a court heard.
Gordon Campbell-Thomas, 72, appeared at York Crown Court today (Tuesday, 23 August) for the first day of his trial on the two allegations.
Barrister Brian Russell, opening the case for the prosecution, said that Mr Campbell-Thomas raped the woman at his flat in York after he and the victim drank wine together.
He said the alleged incidents occurred either late at night on 14 November, 2020, or the early hours of the following morning.
Mr Russell said that shortly before the alleged rapes, Mr Campbell-Thomas gave the woman, aged in her 20s, a red T-shirt as a “little present” which she put on over her clothes.
Mr Campbell-Thomas – who stood as a candidate in the City of York Council elections on more than one occasion and is founded a charity in the city – claimed that the woman exposed an intimate part of her body which he kissed, and this “proceeded quite rapidly” into full, consensual sex.
He claimed the sex was initiated by the woman.
The second alleged rape happened soon afterwards.
The jury heard that both Campbell-Thomas and the woman had drunk quite a lot of wine before the alleged rapes and were both “rather drunk”.
The woman later left in a taxi after refusing Mr Campbell-Thomas’s offer to stay the night.
Mr Russell said that after the woman left, Mr Campbell-Thomas tried to contact her by phone and became “somewhat concerned” because she appeared to be lost, but later on in the morning she called him to say she had arrived home safely.
“The next morning, he receives a call from her asking what happened that night because she had no recollection of it,” added Mr Russell.
Concerned by her behaviour
The alleged victim – who is from York but cannot be named for legal reasons – said that after leaving the flat she made several phone calls and sent messages to various people before getting into an Uber cab.
It was said that she apparently found the taxi driver attractive and “persistently asked him for his telephone number”.
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He refused to give her his number and once he had dropped her off at home, he was “so concerned about her behaviour” he informed his controller, saying he felt “uncomfortable”.
The woman was met by her flatmate who was also concerned about her friend’s “irrational and uncharacteristic” behaviour.
The alleged victim told her flatmate she thought she had had sex but had “no recollection of doing so” and was “somewhat confused” about what had happened.
Mr Russell said although there was no evidence to suggest that Mr Campbell-Thomas had spiked her drink, the woman believed this was the case and that it explained her lack of memory and her “strange, uncharacteristic” behaviour on the night in question.
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A few days later, she made a complaint to police about Mr Campbell-Thomas who was arrested and brought in for questioning.
He claimed the woman was “happy to have sex with him and she took the initiative and made it happen”.
He admitted they were both “rather drunk, but not so drunk as to make consent impossible”.
Mr Russell said the alleged victim “did not consent to this sex” and told the jury they would have to decide the case on whether or not Mr Campbell-Thomas “reasonably believed” that the woman was consenting.
Mr Campbell-Thomas, of Ascot Way, York, denies two counts of rape.
His barrister Sean Smith said there was no dispute that his client and the named woman had sex but that it was consensual. The trial continues.