A WITNESS to an alleged rape in a hostel told a jury he was vilified by the accused for reporting the incident to staff.

Dennis Baker claimed Italian Ivan Filignano and his friends made fun of him when he called night porter Adrien Kingslow for help at the King’s Arms Hostel last August, a jury heard yesterday.

Giving evidence at Hove Crown Court, he said he saw the naked 30-year-old defendant climb into the bottom bunk bed in the Brighton hostel with a woman of 23 just metres away from his own bed.

Mr Baker, a resident at the hostel, said he had met the victim for the first time that evening.

He added: “I heard a rustling movement. She said no repeatedly. She sounded distressed.

“I would not have interrupted if I didn’t think there was something going on that I didn’t like.”

When asked by Rebecca Upton, defending, why he did not intervene immediately, he said he went to get back up because the group had been drinking.

He told the court: “Later they asked me if I was gay, or a girl, or a real man because I interrupted.”

The jury heard the woman told police she thought she was eight on a drunk scale of zero to ten after having Southern Comfort and lemonade in a pub and half a bottle of whiskey on the beach.

The jury heard she told police: “He pulled my hair, put his arm across my chest and tried to force open my legs with his knees.

“I was trying to shove him off. It’s embarrassing. I didn’t report it to the police immediately because I was trying to work out what had happened.”

She gave evidence behind a screen. When CCTV footage of her in the hostel was played for the jury she felt uncomfortable. The hearing was temporarily halted.

Filignano appeared in custody wearing a beige jumper and jeans with a neck tattoo on display.

He shook his head in the dock as the jury saw CCTV of him in his underpants in the hostel corridor with Mr Kingslow and Mr Baker.

Miss Upton said the woman’s accounts of the incident conflicted and called into question her credibility, referring to a sexual assault allegation she is said to have made this year against a taxi driver.

Miss Upton claimed she did so to try and avoid paying a fare.

Filignano, of Inverness Terrace, Bayswater, London, denies rape and sexual assault. The case continues.

The story so far

THE trial of Filignano began on Tuesday. He is accused of raping and sexually assaulting the victim at the hostel in George Street on August 23 last year.

Filignano, already in the dormitory, touched her, pushed her on to her back and raped her, said prosecutor Piers Reed.

He told the night porter she had consented, adding: “You’re a man, she’s a woman, you’ll understand. It’s natural,” the court heard.

Filignano was arrested at Heathrow and questioned in Brighton.

He claimed he got into bed with the victim after seeing her “wiggling her bottom at him,” the court heard.