Alleged rape victim said Hartlepool man plied her with alcohol before attacking her

A woman told a court how a man plied her with drink and raped her when she was a teenager.
The case is being heard at Teesside Crown Court.The case is being heard at Teesside Crown Court.
The case is being heard at Teesside Crown Court.

Jeffrey Waite is accused of raping the woman once, and he is accused of raping a different victim four times.

The offences are alleged to have happened several decades ago at three houses in Hartlepool.

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"I was in a workingmen's club," the woman told a jury at Teesside Crown Court. "I got drunk, but I can remember getting a taxi and thinking I was being taken home."

But she said she was taken to a nightclub and added: "There were some people in there who I knew, and I started talking to one lad in particular.

"Jeffrey Waite became quite possessive, it was weird.

"He more or less dragged me into another taxi."

The woman said she was taken to a house in Hartlepool.

"He pulled me up the staircase," she said. "I didn't have the strength to get away.

"I was screaming, he put his hand over my mouth.

"It was horrible, I could smell the drink and cigarettes.

"I thought I was in a nightmare."

The jury heard evidence from Waite's other alleged victim.

She claims Waite raped her at a house in Hartlepool and at a bedsit.

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Stephen Duffield, defending, put it to the victim that she had given different accounts in a video taped police interview and in a later written statement.

The alleged victim conceded the accounts were different in some respects, but said she had remembered the other information after the video had been recorded.

The court heard there were conflicting statements on whether the victims' underwear was removed.

Mr Duffield put it to the alleged victim she had made up her account.

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She insisted she had told the truth as best as she could remember.

The court heard there was an earlier trial involving only the woman who was allegedly raped after the nightclub.

The jury in that trial was unable to reach a verdict.

The other alleged victim said she had previously been too frightened to make a complaint, but felt she had to when she heard about the hung jury in the first trial.

Waite, 66, of no fixed abode, denies five charges of rape.

Proceeding.