Hotel rape trial verdict due today

Friday 28 August 2020

The jury in a trial of a man accused of raping a woman after threatening her with a knife is expected to give its verdict today, after retiring at the end of four days of evidence and legal argument.

The six men and six women will decide the fate of 43-year-old Indian national Vikas Dhar, who is accused of two counts of rape, alleged to have taken place in an apartment of the Sarum Hotel in the early hours of 14 September last year, after Dhar and the complainant had met for the first time outside the Royal Yacht Hotel.

Both had been drinking separately. The woman started walking home but met Dhar again in Bond Street, and the two walked hand in hand back to his room.  There, she argued, they had engaged in consensual sex. 

But, giving evidence earlier in the week, the woman said that the mood had changed when she noticed that Mr Dhar was wearing a wedding ring and discovered that he was married with two children.

She tried to leave but Mr Dhar left the room to quickly return holding a knife and saying: “You’re not leaving 'till morning." The Crown said the woman was gripped by fear and when he returned without the knife, she was raped.

The defence maintained that, although Mr Dhar and the woman had engaged in foreplay, no physical sex had taken place. 

In summing up the prosecution case on Thursday, Crown Advocate Julian Gollop highlighted discrepancies in Mr Dhar’s account.

Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae is presiding over the jury trial.

“In a police interview, Mr Dhar was asked to describe the type of sex he had had with the woman. 'Normal,' he replied,” said Advocate Gollop. 

“And later, when he was in the Magistrate’s Court making a bail application, he made no complaint about consensual sex. He said: 'We had done anal and vaginal sex both for the first time also.'

“How does these confessions fit in with assertions made that there was no intercourse? Both statements can’t be true, which means one position has to be a lie.”

Advocate Gollop added: “[The woman] was a credible and believable witness. She was candid and honest. She fully accepts that her memory of the evening has gaps but that is not necessarily an uncommon occurrence for someone who has drunk too much.

“You must also ask, why would she lie in these circumstances? She has a history of stress so why would she want to put herself through the experience of police interviews, detailed medical examinations, and then sharing embarrassing and intimate details in a room of lawyers, a jury and the media. She would not lie, and she did not lie.”

Defence Advocate Olaf Blakeley argued that there were large gaps in the prosecution evidence, including no analysis of the bedsheets, the woman’s clothes or Mr Dhar’s saliva being present on the woman, which could have accounted for his DNA being on her without intercourse.

Advocate Blakeley also said that there were many inconsistencies in the woman’s evidence. 

“When she first spoke to the hotel receptionist after leaving Mr Dhar’s room, she said: 'He tried to force me to have sex, but I ran away.' Only later did she change it to: 'He forced me to have sex' and there is an important difference there.”

Addressing the jury, the lawyer said: “How reliable was the woman’s evidence? I say that you cannot rely on it, and your function is to be sure. You cannot rely on it because it is inconsistent, there are large gaps and it can be shown to be inaccurate.”

Summing up at the end of the four-day trial, Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae told the jury that, in order to convict, they had to be sure that Mr Dhar intentionally penetrated the woman, that she did not consent to it, that Mr Dhar knew she was not consenting, and that, if he believed that she was, that belief was an unreasonable one to have.