Two men on a night out in Cardiff caught a taxi to Swansea to meet girls they had been communicating with online, before one of the girls was raped, a court has been told.
Paul Ceri Clement and William James Sidney L’Homme had been visiting bars in Cardiff on the evening of May 24, 2017, when they paid a cab fare of £90 to bring them to Swansea .
They had spent the hours before messaging the girls, whom they had never met, via a social media messaging app.
Swansea Crown Court heard the two teenage girls then led the men, aged 39 and 33, into the yard of a secondary school where one of the girls was assaulted.
Clement denies rape, assault by penetration, and sexual assault. L’Homme denies causing or inciting a girl under the age of 16 to engage in sexual activity.
Prosecuting, Andrew Davies told the court: “The defendants are friends and they have been out in Cardiff city centre drinking into the early hours.
“While out they had been in contact with the girls and thinking there was the ability to have sexual contact with the young girls.
“They travelled from Cardiff in a taxi, arriving around 2am, and met the girls. The prosecution says it would have been obvious to men in their thirties that they were girls.”
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Mr Davies said the girls had walked with the men to the grounds of a nearby school where the men pestered the girls to perform sexual acts with them.
The court heard the alleged victim said L’Homme had been trying to get her to perform a sex act on him, but he gave up and walked away when she repeatedly refused.
But Clement, the court heard, was "being pushy" by asking her to perform a number of sex acts on him, exposed himself to her and attempted to force her to perform a sex act, but the girl "refused to get involved in anything sexual with a man considerably older than her".
Mr Davies said Clement was alleged to have said: “Come on. She [the alleged victim’s friend] promised and she is not doing anything.
“You can’t do that as well. That is not fair. We have come all the way down here and spent £90 on a taxi and it is for nothing.”
The court was told the girl then went for a walk in the school yard with Clement and, shortly after, described herself being on the floor with her back against a wall, with Clement pinning her arms back.
Mr Davies said: “It is the prosecution’s case it is clear she was resisting, but he was being persistent and went on to rape her.”
The court heard the girl had a number of layers of clothing on, including pajama bottoms, which Clement is alleged to have removed.
Mr Davies told the court that she had later told police: “I think at that point I had just given up. It was going to happen, there is no point in trying to stop it now.
“He had already decided that ‘no’ was not the answer for him, so what was the point?”
He added: “She gave up fighting at that stage, but the prosecution say it was clearly rape.”
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The court heard Clement had bought a long-stemmed rose with him to present to the girls.
Mr Davies said both men, both of Richard Street in Maerdy, Rhondda, were arrested months later. Clement was interviewed three times by police, giving no comment answers in his first two interviews.
In the third, Clement was said to have admitted getting a taxi to Swansea after a night out in Cardiff, but that the girls had only been talking and "cuddling to keep each other warm", and said he left after learning of the girls’ ages.
The alleged victim was questioned via video link by lawyers representing the two defendants, after the jury had seen the video of her being interviewed with police.
Carina Hughes, representing Clement, said: “The reality here is none of this happened to you with the Cardiff guys did it? It is your way of getting some attention. Now you have started this it is difficult to stop it?”
The complainant responded: “I am telling you the truth.”
Nick Gedge, representing L’Homme, asked her whether she considered his client “very much in the background” and “very shy”, to which she agreed.
Mr Gedge said: “You can’t remember the words [L’Homme] said, is it because it simply did not happen?”
She replied: “It did happen. It had been a couple of weeks [before she fully confided what had allegedly happened to her] because I was trying to forget about it.”
Mr Gedge added: “You never saw him do anything untoward to [her friend] ?
“No”, she replied.
The trial continues.
