The jury has retired to deliberate the case of a 27-year-old man accused of a string of sexual assaults in town.

Abdelkarim Arfaoui denies ten offences which he allegedly committed against five different women – none of whom know each other – in the space of 90 minutes on a Sunday morning.

During a seven-day Royal Court trial, the jury heard that he was at the end of a night out and was walking with the first complainant when the first four alleged offences occurred.

He was accused of becoming “handsy” with the first woman, getting his penis out, forcibly kissing her, strangling her three times with his arm, tackling her to the ground and attempting to rape her.

Mr Arfaoui’s account was that he walked with the woman, but that her attitude changed when he turned down her advances, and that she was drunk and fell.

Where the prosecution said CCTV footage showed him pinning her against a fence and kissing her, Mr Arfaoui said he was being “cheeky” and joking around to try to calm her down.

Crown Advocate Lauren Hallam told the court that, after the first woman escaped him, the man approached a different woman who became “terrified” of him.

Mr Arfaoui has claimed throughout the trial that he was drunk and disoriented, without an internet connection on his phone, and that he was just asking the women for directions to his home.

After the second woman ran away, Mr Arfaoui is accused of climbing over two fences to reach another woman. He accepted that he had put his hand on her shoulder and spoke to her.

But the third woman said he ran after her, pinned her against a car and kissed her face. She said she shouted, and that he punched her.

Mr Arfaoui is then accused of approaching a fourth woman, telling her obscenities about his penis, and grabbing her bottom. He apologised and tried to shake her hand, which she refused to do.

He is then accused of approaching a fifth woman who described him swearing at her and grabbing her bottom.

A large portion of his movements during the night were caught on CCTV, and jurors were given maps to track his route, some of which came very close to his home – which Crown Advocate Hallam said showed that he was not actually lost.

Advocate Greg Herold-Howes, defending, told jurors that the allegations were the result of police officers fitting events to their own narrative and that the incidents had been “misunderstandings”.

Commissioner Alan Binnington is presiding. The jury retired at 10.20am this morning.