belfasttelegraph

Sunday 19 May 2013

Amy partner 'raped sleeping woman'

Reg Traviss denies two counts of rape at Southwark Crown Court

The boyfriend of the late singer Amy Winehouse allegedly raped a woman while she was asleep, a court has been told.

Reg Traviss, 35, attacked the woman after she was so drunk she could not stand, it was claimed.

The film director, who was Winehouse's boyfriend when she died at her home in Camden, north London, in July last year, faces two counts of rape at Southwark Crown Court. He denies the charges.

Traviss and the woman, a friend, had been drinking at three bars in the capital on December 30 last year before going to his home on Marylebone High Street. There she alleges she twice fell asleep to wake up with him raping her.

Kate Lumsdon, prosecuting, said the complainant remembered Traviss asking if she wanted to stay at his and she assumed she had said yes.

She said: "His asking that question was the last thing she remembers that evening until woken in his bed because of a sharp pain... She asked what he was doing and told him to stop. He stopped. She was very shocked. He offered her a drink. She accepted and remembers it was more alcohol, wine."

The prosecutor said the pair had a conversation in which Traviss asked her if she just wanted to stay friends. "She said 'Yeah'.

"They chatted for about half an hour and she relaxed again. She could not process what had happened and could hardly believe it. He was acting as if nothing had happened at all."

Miss Lumsdon said the complainant felt extremely weak and suffered from a blood sugar level condition. She said the accused asked if she wanted to go back to sleep, which she did, but woke up to find him raping her again.

The next day Traviss repaid the woman for some drinks she had bought the night before and showed her to the Tube so she could go home. The jury of six men and six women heard that the complainant went out with friends the following night, New Year's Eve, went away to New York in the new year and waited almost three weeks before reporting Traviss to police.

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