A RUGBY coach from Wantage raped a teenage girl after having an argument with his wife, a court heard yesterday.

As Tom Clipsham's trial opened at Oxford Crown Court, barrister Paul Jackson outlined the prosecution’s case that he attacked the woman at his Barwell home following a night out in March last year.

The 30-year-old, who has previously coached at Grove Rugby Club, denies one count of rape, claiming the pair had consensual sex.

Mr Jackson said the teenager, who was 18 at the time and cannot be named for legal reasons, had gone back to Clipsham's house with a female friend who had got with one of Clipsham’s friends on a night out at Wantage nightclub Shush.

He said: “The man was staying with the defendant and the anticipation was she would stay in the spare bedroom as she was also due to spend the night at her friends.”

It was when the young woman, who has lifetime anonymity, was getting ready for bed at around 4am on March 5 that the rape is alleged to have taken place.

Mr Jackson said: “He was in his bedroom, she went in looking for her friend but the defendant closed the door and sat her down on the bed.”

He said Clipsham had been on the phone to his wife, who was in the US at the time, and hung up ‘angry’ before the attack, in which it is claimed he pushed the teenager down, holding her arms so hard they bruised.

The prosecutor said it appeared he was ‘determined to get back’ at his wife by having sex.

The jury of seven women and five men saw the woman, in a video played in court, break down sobbing multiple times as she was interviewed by police.

Describing how she ‘froze’ when Clipsham pinned her to his bed she told officers she had felt ‘disgusting and ashamed’, adding she knew she was ‘too weak to push him off’.

She said: “He said come and sit down so I sat down and just thought it would be a normal chat or something.

“He seemed like a genuine nice guy, didn’t seem horrible. He didn’t seem like he would do anything to me.”

When Clipsham’s wife called again, the teenager said she fled from the room and called a male friend who was working late to come and pick her up.

Once she got home, she said she immediately washed her clothes and had a shower in an attempt to ‘scrub away the smell’.

The teenager said: “I couldn’t stop crying, I felt dirty and was trying to take my clothes off, pulling at them because they had this disgusting smell – the smell of his aftershave.”

Mr Jackson said the woman’s Facebook messages from the time of the incident indicate a ‘sharp change in mood’ and she sent at 4.24am: “I can’t even talk I just need to go home.”

The trial, expected to last until the end of the week, continues.