Colchester: Miridon Bera gives evidence in rape trial

Giving evidence to a jury at Ipswich Crown Court Miridon Bera said the woman, who is in her 20s,  had approached him on the dance floor at the Walkabout bar and touched his groin.

He said that when he said he was leaving she had been happy to go with him and had no problem walking up the stairs to his flat in Bank Passage.

Once inside they had kissed before having consensual sex and he denied that she had pushed him away at any stage.

Bera, 30, of Talavera Crescent, Colchester, has denied raping the woman in July 2019.

The court has heard that the alleged victim visited Turtle Bay and Walkabout during a night out with a friend.

Her next memory was being in a brightly lit room and pushing a man in the chest and telling him to get off her.

She said she didn’t know where she was and she then recalled  hearing her friend’s voice and getting into her friend’s mother’s car.

In a statement her friend’s mother described her as being like a “sack of potatoes” and “having very little control over her body”.

In another statement the alleged victim’s mother said her daughter’s friend told her that she thought her daughter’s drink had been spiked.

Charles Myatt, prosecuting, said that experts who analysed a urine sample taken from the woman 18 hours after the alleged rape didn’t detect the presence of any drugs.

However they said the “date rape” drug GHB was rapidly eliminated from the body within one to two hours and wouldn’t have shown up.

He said that by doing a back calculation the experts were able to estimate she would have been more than twice the drink drive limit at the time of the alleged rape.

The trial continues.

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