A MAN accused of raping a schoolboy insists the 14-year-old consented to do it, a court heard.

Nicholas Gully, a sex therapist from Eley Crescent, Rottingdean, told the jury how he and the boy “made eye contact three or four times” before they engaged in sexual activity in a toilet cubicle at the King Alfred leisure centre in Hove on January 29.

Gully, 48, denies two counts of sexual assault and one of rape.

He said the act of meeting someone in a public place and having sex with them in a toilet was “cottaging”, and it was revealed to the Hove Crown Court jury yesterday that he wrote a play about the behaviour, entitled Anonymous.

Gully told the court he had “cottaged a lot” when he was younger and was intrigued by the anonymity.

Gully later said he was “going to have a shower” at the leisure centre because he was running a meditation class on the afternoon of January 29 and would not have had enough time to get home.

He said he thought the teenager was 16 or 17 and his initial thought of the boy was that he was “handsome”. Gully said he wondered if the boy was “cruising” – looking for an anonymous sexual partner.

Gully told jurors his “age range” is “between 18 and 25” and that the boy was “close to the line” of the legal age of consent - 16. He also said the boy “looked 18” when he stood up in the communal area. He also said he is publicly heterosexual, but has taken an interest in men since his teenage years.

Speaking of the incident, Gully said: “We were both at the urinals and I noticed the boy.”

The court then heard Gully told the schoolboy to go in the cubicle and he would perform a sex act on him.

The 48-year-old claims that while he did this the boy made signals but did not talk, leading Gully to believe he was foreign.

He then said the two “kissed passionately” and the boy wanted to perform a sex act on on him.

Gully said he “pushed him away” after ten or 15 seconds, telling the boy he “wasn’t clean”.

Two of the boy’s family members burst out in tears and had to leave the courtroom while Gully was on the stand. Jurors also heard Gully refused to have swabs taken, again claiming he “wasn’t clean”. Gully’s DNA was found in swabs from the boy, the court heard.

When he found out the boy’s real age at the police station after his arrest, he said: “F***, this is bad,” and broke down, the court heard.

Amy Packham, who is prosecuting, put it to Gully that he “went looking for an anonymous sexual partner” when he went to the King Alfred, something the accused “100 per cent denied”. The trial continues .

GULLY WAS INTRIGUED BY THE ANONYMITY OF ‘COTTAGING’

NICHOLAS Gully wrote the play Anonymous around 15 years ago out of intrigue, he told the court yesterday.

He said it outlines the act of ‘cottaging’ – making eye contact with strangers and proceeding to have sex with them in a public toilet. Gully said he used to do it when he was younger and later studied it, fascinated by the concept of it.

He told the jury the play was silent because people tend not to talk during cottaging – it is “all actions”.

Gully described the characters in the play to the court, saying they were all male adults, with one of the men a 20-year-old.

He said none of the others were below the age of 20, and another character was a “professional person”.

Hove Crown Court also heard the characters were “more like caricatures” and one was a drag queen.

Gully told the jury he has been cottaging on and off “for decades”, and used to do it primarily for sexual contact.

The sex therapist said he does it more so to “get phone numbers and maybe go for coffee” nowadays, and he hoped for the 14-year-old boy’s number when the alleged assault took place in January.