The trial of a Police officer accused of sexually assaulting a visitor began in Magistrates' Court yesterday with the alleged victim telling the court she awoke after a night of drinking to find the defendant on top of her.

The woman, who has flown to Bermuda from overseas to testify in the case, told the court she was in Bermuda for several days last December staying with a friend in his house. Although she shared a bedroom and a bed with the male friend, who is also an officer in the Bermuda Police Force, she said there had never been any sexual activity between herself and her friend.

She told the court that on the last night of her stay she and her friend had gone out to dinner and then stopped for a few drinks in Coconut Rock. There they met up with two women her friend knew, who they shared a table with for around an hour.

The couple left Coconut Rock without the two women and visited some other bars before ending up at The Beach, where they ran into the two women again. This time the women were also accompanied by a man now known as the accused.

The five shared a table and had more drinks. When The Beach closed at three none were ready to leave, so the alleged victim's friend invited them all back to his house for some more drinks. All five travelled to his apartment on Harbour Road in Warwick in a taxi together.

There, the woman told the courts, the five spent more than an hour drinking, talking, and singing. The defendant, she said, was sitting on a couch while her friend and the two women were gathered around a bar in the apartment when she began to feel ill and went to the bathroom.

On returning to her friends, the woman said the accused was still sitting on the couch and appeared to be sleeping, while the other three were still gathered around the bar. She said at that point, around 5.30 a.m., she decided she was going to bed. She said she went to the bedroom, changed into her pyjamas, brushed her teeth and went to sleep.

She told the courts she awoke several hours later, saying it was around 8 a.m. When she awoke she said she realised the defendant was above her, her pyjamas bottoms had been pulled down around her knees, and a tampon she had been wearing had been pulled out of her body. The defendant, she said, was shirtless, and his trousers were either pulled down around his ankles or completely off.

“I pushed him on his shoulder and said ‘What in the hell do you think you're doing,'” she told the court. “He didn't say anything.”

Leaving the bedroom, the woman said she sat on a couch in the living room, where her male friend and one of the women were sleeping on cushions on the floor. The second woman, the court learned, had left before the others went to sleep. “I kept repeating to myself, ‘Holy shit, holy shit,'” she said.

When the defendant came out after her, she said: “He kept repeating he was sorry, and I just kept repeating to him ‘You can't violate people like that ... What did you expect me to think, my underpants were down and tampons don't just come out by themselves.'”

She then left the living room and returned to the bedroom, and around five minutes later saw the defendant leave the house from a window. Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrosson also called a Detective Sergeant with the Bermuda Police Service to the stand to read a voluntary statement the defendant had made to Police after he was arrested.

In the statement, the defendant claimed he had been awake on the couch after the alleged victim went to bed, however felt uncomfortable in the living room as the other Policeman and woman were kissing on the cushions on the floor.

He claimed he therefore got up and went to the bedroom, where he asked the visitor if he could share her bed. She consented, and he said he got into bed fully dressed.

Then he said he asked the woman if she wanted a hug. She did not reply but began to cuddle next to him, then to kiss him and remove his clothes. He also claimed she began to touch his penis, however due to alcohol and tiredness he could not have an erection.

Embarrassed by this, he said he moved and decided to try and pleasure her instead. He claimed the tampon only came out when he pulled a little too hard on the string.

It was shortly after that the woman got up and left the room without a word, he said. He followed her, and she seemed upset. Shortly after he decided to leave. In the statement read to the court the defendant said he did not have sexual intercourse with the woman, and he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident but in control of his actions to a certain degree.

The trial continues today before Acting Magistrate Will Francis in Magistrates' Court.