A WOMAN who was due to pick up a vulnerable teenage girl after a night out in St Helier says she believes she heard the girl being raped.
The woman gave evidence on the second day of the trial in the Royal Court of 64-year-old Joseph Raymond Lloyd.
Mr Lloyd is accused of raping and assaulting the teenager after following her through the town centre one evening last year. He denies charges of rape and sexual penetration without consent.
The woman told the court that she had been due to pick up the teenager at 10.30pm on the night in question, but the girl said she did not want to go home straight away.
About an hour later the woman received a text from the teenager, which read: ‘Snow Hill. Help,’ and then another adding: ‘Help me. Behind van.’
She drove to Snow Hill car park but was unable to find the girl. She tried phoning her and said: ‘I heard a man’s voice making noises a man would make having sex.
‘All I heard was this male voice, carrying on having sex.’
Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae asked the woman: ‘You thought she was being raped?’
She replied: ‘That’s what I thought, straight away.’
During cross-examination Advocate Mike Preston, defending, said to the woman: ‘You didn’t walk through Snow Hill car park and didn’t hear that noise at all, did you?’
She said: ‘I did.’
The court heard that the girl rang 999 shortly after messaging the woman.
The two States police officers who responded to the 999 call, PC Kesia Myers and PC Oliver Morris, gave evidence yesterday.
PC Myers said of the girl: ‘She was crying inconsolably. She was taking very short breaths and her eyes were streaming with tears.
‘One of her stockings was pulled halfway down her thigh and there was a rip to the knee area of the other one.
‘I asked if someone had hurt her. She said: “Yes” and nodded, but it was really difficult for her to get a sentence out.’
PC Morris told the court that when they arrived Mr Lloyd appeared to be holding the girl by her upper arms, and claimed he was waiting for a taxi. ‘He seemed confused by our appearance,’ the officer said.
The girl was taken to Dewberry House sexual assault referral unit where she was examined by forensic medical examiner Dr James Newton. He told the court that there had been bruising and swelling to her private parts.
The trial continues and is expected to last three more days.
