Woman accepts plea deal in top boy actor’s rape trial

A woman who claims she was raped by Top Boy actor Michael Ward has dismissed suggestions the relationship was consensual.

Ward is accused of raping the woman in a car after meeting her in an east London nightclub in January 2023.

The 28-year-old denied the rape and three counts of sexual assault against the woman, and all sexual acts between the couple were consensual.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, broke down as she told the court that she did not understand her situation and that if she had known she would “never have gotten into that car with him”.

Jurors were previously told she knew Ward had been in film and TV and was amused when he asked her for her Snapchat handle.

Sally Bennett-Jenkins, defending Casey, told Ward he told the woman: “What’s in the back of the car is a deal” to which she replied: “No, Michael, you dared me.”

The alleged victim became emotional as she recalled that she did not use the word “no” during the incident on January 2, 2023 and “completely shut down.”

She said she repeatedly told the Blue Story actor that she had to leave on “several occasions”.

The court heard the woman appeared angry when she got into her friend’s car and drove home after the alleged attack.

The friend, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court that when asked what happened, the woman lost her temper and “she just kept crying”.

“Because I knew something was wrong with her, so I asked her, ‘Are you okay?'” said the friend. I realized how hard this was and asked, ‘Did he attack you?’

The court heard that when the alleged victim returned home, he ordered an STD kit and ticked a box asking if she had been sexually assaulted.

In the year In a prepared statement after his arrest on January 18, 2023, Ward told police: “I do not deny the rape allegations. I want to put it on record that we had consensual foreplay and consensual sex.”

Ward in 2010 He won a Bafta Rising Star Award in 2020 and was later nominated twice for his role in the BBC’s Little Axe and the 2022 film Empire of Light.

The trial continues.