A youth team captain admitted he should have used his seniority to step in when Albion players, accused of sexual assault, began messing around with shaving foam in a hotel room.
At a trial at the Old Bailey, Albion defender Lewis Dunk said, on reflection, he could have used his position to calm teammates down in the Jurys Inn room in the early hours of July 17, 2011.
Dunk, former Albion development player Leon Redwood and Bournemouth defender Steve Cook all gave evidence yesterday in day nine of the trial of Dunk, Cook, Anton Rodgers and George Barker on voyeurism and sexual assault charges.
Mr Redwood said he had struck up what was initially a friendship with the young woman in the summer of 2011 and by July he “thought she was keen and interested” in him.
But on the night of July 16, 2011 Mr Redwood said the woman was “kissing and hugging and dancing” with another Albion player, Roland Bergkamp, in Lola Lo nightclub, Brighton.
Mr Redwood told the court that outside the club in East Street later that night the woman said she wanted to be with him instead.
He said: “She told me she loved me and broke down crying.
“She said, ‘take me back to the hotel’. I said no.
“I told her to get a cab home.”
He told the court he was surprised to find her in Anton Rodgers and Ben Sampayo’s hotel room when he came in later and admitted to spraying shaving foam on her, saying she “wriggled” as he did.
The next day, he said the woman texted him asking to make sure pictures on Anton Rodgers’ phone of her were deleted.
But Mr Redwood thought she was “lying” about the pictures and said he didn’t later ask any of the other players about them.
A few months later, Mr Redwood claimed he and the victim had stripped to their underwear and attempted to have sex in the house he shared with Rodgers, Barker and Sampayo in Patcham.
Giving evidence yesterday, Dunk claimed he did not see photographs being taken in the room or players exposing themselves.
He also said that the victim’s flashback memory of Dunk feeding her a chicken burger and putting his arm around her was “not correct”.
He also denied ever touching the victim after she claimed to have had another flashback of Dunk holding her ankles.
Asked by Roger Barton, prosecuting, why as youth team captain he did not step in and control the other players when they started spraying shaving foam, Dunk said: “I didn’t at the time, but reflecting on it now I probably should have.”
The case continues.
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