In what has emerged as a credibility contest, a man accused of raping his cousin chose to take the witness stand yesterday to tell his side of the story.

He told a Supreme Court jury yesterday that he had been left "dumbfounded" and "confused" when the incident occurred almost three years ago.

The 29-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court that he and his cousin had spent an evening together in his room watching television and drinking alcohol.

The pair ended up sleeping on the same bed in his room, he testified. But the man insisted that he had no sexual intentions toward her and did not have sex with her or any sort of sexual relationship.

Earlier during the trial which started last week, the court heard the woman testify that she woke up to find him having sex with her, pushed him off her and struggled to leave the room because the door was locked.

Yesterday, the accused said that he had been asleep and thinking of his girlfriend when he rolled over and was partially on top of the woman, who then woke up and pushed him off before fleeing the room.

Besides denying her version of the December, 2001 incident the man told the court that a letter of apology he had written to the complainant was not an apology for raping her, as she had testified.

"I never apologised for raping her and she never accused me of raping her," he said.

His testimony also conflicted with several other aspects of his accuser's story. The man told the court that he was wearing a long undervest and boxer shorts that evening and had not taken off his boxer shorts as the woman had testified.

And, he said, she had had more than three alcoholic drinks that evening. He also disputed her estimate of the size of the futon, saying it was a single, not a double bed.

The man also testified that his cousin at one point left the room and removed her face cream when he saw off two visitors.

He acknowledged that he had turned the lights off and locked the door, but said that was normal for him as he always locked his bedroom door.

"I must have dozed off to sleep," he told the court. "I was awakened to myself draped over her and her pushing at me. And she ran out of the bedroom."

He continued his testimony saying that he had been thinking of his girlfriend and at first thought that the person in the bed with him was his girlfriend.

He denied straddling the woman, as she had testified, saying only part of his body was over her.

"I know that I did not touch her or touch her robe or untie her straps," he said.

He said he went to her room to talk to her, but she "seemed to be upset, confused and angry".

"When I got to the room, I could hear her sobbing. I was wondering why she was upset because nothing had happened in my room to cause her to be so upset."

And he testified that she could not have barricaded herself in her room with her bed, as she had described, because of the configuration of the room.

He explained that he wrote his cousin a letter a few days after the incident in an attempt to open up the lines of communication and talk about what had happened.

When the pair did talk, he said: "At no time was there mention of me having sex or trying to have sexual intercourse with her."

The man readily admitted, under questioning from his lawyer Craig Attridge, that he had incorrectly responded to Police questioning when he was interviewed in March 2003. But he explained that his memory was sketchy because he was being asked to recall details of an incident that had happened 15 months earlier.

He said he was surprised when the Police arrested him for serious sexual assault. "These allegations are not true and I couldn't believe that they were interviewing me and charging me for this."

And, the man added, his arrest marked the first time he had heard he was supposed to have had sex with his cousin.

He said he had never been in trouble with the Police before or been charged with any offence.

Mr. Attridge went through the man's statement and asked him to clarify the evening's events and his answers to Police questioning.

He explained that the woman was sleepy when he returned from cleaning up and he "figured that when she was ready she would get up and leave".

The Police had wrongly suggested that he had plied her with alcohol in order to take advantage of her, he said.

"When I first awoke, it was somebody in my bed and for a split second I thought I was with my girlfriend until she pushed me off and I realised that it was not my girlfriend ? that it was my cousin."

In further questioning he said that his penis was definitely not erect and that his cousin did not look back and see him as she fled the room.

But he said he understood why she thought that he did not have on his boxer shorts ? because his undervest was long enough to cover them, he said.

The trial continued today before Assistant Supreme Court Justice Carlisle Greaves.