A drunk 19-year-old was in tears when she met her friends after allegedly being raped by a Heaven nightclub security guard, a court has heard.
Morenikeji Adewole, 47, from Dartford, Kent, is on trial accused of raping the woman in his car near the venue in the early hours of November 1 2024, which he denies.
CCTV from the night shows hundreds of people wearing fancy dress in the Heaven smoking area, the street and in the queue.
The complainant, who cannot be identified, and five friends had been drinking vodka mixers before arriving and they queued for more than two hours, Southwark Crown Court heard on Thursday.
She and one of the group were denied entry to the central London venue’s Halloween event because they were too intoxicated, the court was told.
The friend who was also rejected described himself being “eight out of 10” on a scale of intoxication, meaning “very, very drunk”.
A security guard walked them to nearby Buckingham Street to sober up and the two friends sat on some steps while the guard stood by, he told jurors.
The complainant only stayed there for around “30 seconds” because she needed the bathroom and the security guard pointed her towards one, the university student said.
She left her phone, bag and coat with the friend and he waited at the steps with the guard for around 30 minutes before she returned, he claimed.
Asked if he remembered the guard leaving at any point, he said he “might have gone off for a bit” but “most of the time he was with me”.
When she came back the friends had a “jokey” conversation and the young man said he asked “did you probably sleep with someone?”
He added: “I guess the way I worded it was quite rhetorical, not really expecting much of an answer.”
He said he does not remember her immediate reaction and that they then walked back to Heaven.
He added: “She just seemed very adamant to want to get in, she wanted to just see everybody because we had all been separated.”
The pair were again rejected from entering the club, he said.
The rest of the group came outside and the young man recalled the complainant telling them she had had sexual intercourse with the security guard.
Stephan Alfred, defending Adewole, put to the young man that a “realistic summary of how she said it” was “I f***** the security guard, he said he would let me in”.
The young man agreed, adding: “I know that she wasn’t fully able to express herself properly that night, she was still quite intoxicated at that point.”
He later said: “She was very distressed, she was very upset, so I knew that something had happened.
“This supposed sex, it was very uncomfortable, it seemed that it was something she did not want to do. And she had been drinking a lot.”
Prosecutor Marion Smullen had told jurors on Wednesday: “The issues in the case, I anticipate, will be first of all consent.
“In order for a person to consent to sexual intercourse, they have to have capacity – a drunken consent can still be consent.
“However, if a complainant was so intoxicated that she was in no position to give a proper consent, that is not consent”.
A friend who had been in the club gave evidence on Thursday.
Asked what the complainant first said to her, she told jurors: “This isn’t exact, it was something along the lines of she had gone inside a car with a security guard and they had sex and he said he would let her into the club.
“And then she started to get upset. We’re getting a bit worried. She starts to cry and stuff, because she was really, really drunk.”
The witness later said she looked at one friend who “kind of mouthed ‘isn’t that rape?'”
“I was like, I think so, because she was too intoxicated to consent in my opinion,” she added.
The group decided to report it to Heaven security, she said.
The witness told jurors: “When we were discussing it, prior, we said this seems like rape, so that’s what we were going to report.”
She described the Heaven staff as “quite dismissive” and “they said we could come back in the morning to report it”.
The alleged victim was “bawling, crying” and vomited in the Uber back to the witness’s home where several of the group stayed, she said.
The complainant slept until around 2pm before they “talked it all out” and decided to call the police, she added.
The trial continues.
