A serving Metropolitan police officer raped a woman in the sea on Brighton beach on his stag night, a court has heard.
Sgt Laurence Knight, 34, is said to have met the woman, a stranger, in the early hours of 17 July 2021 while in the city centre. Prosecutors say the pair walked to the beach together, undressed to their underwear and ended up in the sea.
Maryam Syed, prosecuting, said that while in the sea the woman said to the defendant, who the jury heard is sometimes called Larry, “you’re getting married in two weeks”.
After the alleged incident, a friend of the defendant said to the woman that “Larry wants me to tell you that he’s sorry”, the prosecution said.
The defendant, who denies the allegation, and his group left and the woman called the police, meeting officers nearby.
Syed said the alleged victim told police that Knight wanted to go into the sea and she did not wish to but he persuaded her, telling her “it was his stag night, he was meant to be having fun but it was turning into a rubbish night”.
The woman thought the defendant looked as if he was going to cry, the prosecution told the jury, so she said yes and took off her dress as she did not want it to get wet.
Knight moved behind the woman in the water then moved her underwear and that is when the alleged sexual activity took place, Syed said.
The woman asked the defendant “what are you doing” and said “stop” and he did not reply, she said in her police interview.
“I said ‘you’re getting married in two weeks, just stop, don’t do that’ and he just didn’t stop,” the prosecution said, reading from the interview.
Syed said the woman was then raped. The woman said “stop” and “don’t” to the defendant and she did not move, saying later she thought she was in shock, the jury was told.
The woman said the defendant then got out of the water. She put her dress back on and went to sit by a friend, the court heard.
She said in the police interview: “I didn’t say anything and then the guy who I was in the sea with, his friend came over to me and said ‘oh Larry, Larry wants me to tell you that he’s sorry, Larry wants to say, like, sorry.’ I didn’t look up at him, I didn’t want to engage with any of them.”
The woman said she then told her friend what had happened and called 999, the prosecution said.
Knight, of Leyton, east London, who the Met said had been suspended from duty, was arrested on 28 July 2021 and provided a prepared statement in which he said the woman was being “flirtatious with all of them”.
He said she had suggested they go into the sea, she reached behind and touched his genitals and he did not penetrate her.
The defendant returned for a second interview on 5 January 2022 and provided another prepared statement saying he moved her underwear and it was consensual, but then she said “aren’t you getting married” and he stopped.
The prosecution said the defendant “took advantage of this young woman who was clearly in drink”.
The trial continues.
