AN RAF sergeant accused of rape told police he and his accuser had been flirting together before a consensual sexual encounter.

Stewart Fryatt is on trial at Oxford Crown Court charged with raping a 22-year-old colleague at RAF Benson last March.

The 38-year-old, who denies one count of rape and one count of a serious sexual assault, told officers he was “shell shocked” by the allegations.

In his police interview, which was read in court yesterday, Fryatt said he and the woman had been chatting while watching Six Nations rugby at an on-site bar and that she suggested she accompany him back to the sergeants’ mess later that evening.

Fryatt, now based in High Wycombe, said their contact became physical after the woman had urinated outside having found the door to the toilets locked.

He said: “At that point we started kissing, it was a mutual kind of thing, and then kissing turned into heavy petting.”

He added: “She then pushed herself against me and tried to wrap her leg around me.

“At this point there was consensual intercourse.

“I suppose in the day and age we live in someone would call it a quickie.”

Jurors also heard a statement from a male friend of the complainant who said she rang him from the bar after the alleged incident and they had “a general conversation, nothing unusual, we spoke about what we had been up to”.

The trial continues.