Rape trial doctor says two women were flirting

8:43am Friday 15th December 2006

A doctor told a jury two women may have falsely accused him of rape because he had sex with both of them.

Dr Mark Rance, 31, said the women, both teachers, were lying when they claimed he raped them at their flat in Brighton.

Both women claim they woke to find the doctor naked on top of them. They accuse him of raping them when they were drunk and asleep.

At a trial at Lewes Crown Court, Rance, of Bernard Road, Worthing, denies two charges of rape.

He claims the women may have made up the allegations because they were upset after learning he had sex with them one after another.

The court was told Rance met the women at the Karma bar at Brighton Marina in September last year. He became friendly with one of the women, who he started to kiss in the bar.

Her friend went home and Rance and the other woman later returned to the two-bedroom flat.

The first woman told the jury she and Rance went into the bedroom, where she asked him to rub her feet because she had been wearing high-heeled shoes. She said she passed out because of the amount of alcohol she had drunk or fell asleep.

The next thing she was aware of was the sensation of someone having sex with her.

She said she was "horrendously"

drunk and could not have given consent.

She told Rance to leave and he is alleged to have gone straight to her flatmate's bedroom and had sex with the sleeping woman.

She told the jury she was shocked and frightened when she woke in the middle of the night to find Rance raping her.

But the doctor, who has worked in hospitals in Sussex, said the women were lying.

He said they were both flirting with him that night and both willingly had sex with him.

During cross-examination he denied they had been asleep when he started to have sex with them.

He told the jury: "They were excited and very much involved. There were gasps and noises associated with sexual pleasure. I had consensual sex with both of those females."

Gillian Etherton, prosecuting, suggested to Rance he had violated the women's trust they gave him by allowing him in the flat. She said he did not have a knife or jump out at them from bushes but he had committed a much subtler type of rape.

Rance denied raping them and said he did not know why they were lying.

He said: "I cannot comment on why these two females have done this. I had consensual sex with both of them and I think they felt cheated because it was behind each other's back. I do regret that but it was not rape."

The court has heard Rance, who hopes to become a plastic surgeon, was on a research fellowship at McIndoe Surgical Centre, which specialises in plastic and cosmetic surgery, based at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, when the alleged rapes took place.

He was two weeks away from completing his final membership of the Royal College of Surgeons but lost his job and is now working in a caf.

The jury is due to retire today to consider its verdict.