UPDATED Dec. 16, 1:02 p.m.: During the trial, the judge allowed Ehsan Abdulaziz to present 20 minutes of evidence to the jury in private, International Business Times reported. After deliberating for 30 minutes, the jury found Abdulaziz not guilty of one count of rape.
The original version of this story appears, below:
In what must be one of the more surreal defenses against a rape accusation, a millionaire property developer in England said he accidentally penetrated the alleged victim when fell “onto her."
London's Southwark Crown Court has been hearing the arguments for both sides since Wednesday, The Telegraph reported. The alleged rape occurred on Aug. 7, 2014, when Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, brought two women back to his Maida Vale flat.
Abdulaziz knew one of the women, and ran into her and her friend—the 18-year-old alleged victim—at Cirque le Soir nightclub in London's West End. The three went back to Abdulaziz's home, where he took the woman he knew into his bedroom. The alleged victim fell asleep on Abdulaziz's couch while her friend had sex with him.
The victim claims she woke up in the morning to find Abdulaziz on top of her, forcing himself inside of her.
According to the Telegraph, prosecutor Jonathan Davies explained in court, "She said, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'It's fine,' indicating that her friend was asleep. She got up to find her friend, tried to wake her but couldn't, she then tried to get out of the flat as quickly as she could. She was very upset about what had happened to her and because she couldn't wake her friend, she called two friends, she then called the police."
After being arrested, Abdulaziz's statement reportedly changed several times. Initially, he claimed that the young woman woke up when he went to get a glass of water at 5:30 a.m. He said she pulled him on top of her, but grew upset when he resisted her.
Later, when semen was discovered to corroborate the alleged victim's story, Abdulaziz changed his account.
"That caused him to be re-interviewed in May this year and he was confronted with that finding," Davies said in court, according to the Telegraph. "On this occasion he said after he had sex with the complainant's friend his penis was still erect and he had semen on his hands when he went into the living room. He said in the second interview she pushed his hands down on to her vagina. He said that he did fall onto her and his penis may have penetrated her vagina."
Abdulaziz maintains that he is not guilty.
Jonathan Davies did not immediately respond to NTRSCTN's request for comment.
