A MAN accused of raping a woman after a night out in Swindon claims she led him on.

Fareed Issa Tariq, 31, denies two charges of rape and two charges of attempted rape after an incident in the car park of the Weighbridge Brewhouse, in Penzance Drive, last July.

Yesterday, on the second day of the week-long trial at Swindon Crown Court, the jury heard the second interview the alleged victim gave to police before she was cross-examined by defence lawyer, Giuseppina Silvio.

Mrs Silvio suggested that the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was lying in her evidence and that, after dancing with Tariq earlier in the night at the Sir Daniel Arms and Casbah, she had intended to have sex him.

She and a friend had been picked up by Tariq as they walked home in the early hours of July 17, and as he took her home after dropping her friend off, it is suggested by Mrs Silvio, she started stroking Tariq’s leg and lowered her trousers.

It is claimed that Tariq then pulled into the restaurant’s car park where the pair attempted to have consensual sex before he then drove her home.

“It followed from you dancing in the Casbah, it followed on from you getting into the car with him and it followed on from you being left alone in the car, when your friend left and you pulled your trousers down,” said Mrs Silvio.

The woman denied undoing her trousers.

Mrs Silvio later went on to say: “You got into that car knowing something was going to happen.

“No,” the victim replied.

“You egged him on in the club, you consented to get into the car, you let your friend get out and leave you there alone.”

Mrs Silvio suggested that the alleged victim had panicked after the event and to cover up she concocted a story to explain it to her friends and boyfriend.

The jury also heard from the victim’s friend, who she called immediately after the alleged attack, and her boyfriend who called the police shortly after she arrived home in tears.

He said in court: “At about five o’clock in the morning she rang me.

“She was crying, she had said that something had happened to her. I just hung up the phone and opened the front door and took her in.

“She looked horrible, she was crying. She looked like someone had hurt her.

“She had a bruise on her back from when you press something against the body.”

The trial continues today.