A man accused of rape claims his DNA was found on the tights of a woman who reported being raped in an East London alleyway because he tried to stop her falling over. Hossein Mahmoudi, 34, is on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court facing one count of rape and attempted rape against a woman in Stratford in December 2024 as she returned home from a Christmas party.
Mr Mahmoudi repeatedly wiped sweat from his forehead as he took questions from prosecutor Christiaan Moll on Tuesday afternoon (August 26), telling jurors he had gone to help the drunk woman as she urinated in a dark side-road off Stratford Broadway, but ran off when she started screaming at him on December 6, 2024.
Mr Mahmoudi, an Iranian national, previously claimed he recognised the woman as a welfare volunteer who had attended his asylum seeker hospital on Booth Road in Whitechapel. Giving evidence last week, the complainant said she had never been to the building or met Mr Mahmoudi before.
In this witness stand this week, Mr Mahmoudi denied ‘sneaking’ towards the woman, or trying to ‘ambush’ her. Asked why the CCTV showed him ‘pushing her’, Mr Mahmoudi said: “She was going backwards and she fell.”
Asked why the complainant said she felt his penis inside her, Mr Mahmoudi said: “That’s her personal opinion. I have not done that. I do not accept that.”
Asked why he did not get up immediately, Mr Mahmoudi said: “I was shocked. I did not know what to do. Should I help her get up, or go myself?”
After a big forehead wipe from Mr Mahmoudi, Mr Moll asked: “You’re running off but trying to help her. Why run away?”
“Based on what she was shouting and screaming, I was thinking if I stay it can be used against me, and if I go it can still be used against me,” said Mr Mahmoudi.
Mr Moll hit back: “You ran away because you know what you had done.” “I have not done anything wrong,” insisted Mr Mahmoudi.
‘We both fell on the ground’
When Mr Moll commented on Mr Mahmoudi’s running as ‘quite a pace’, Mr Mahmoudi claimed it was a ‘normal pace’, adding: “If I have nothing else to do, this is how I walk around.”
Mr Mahmoudi claimed anything he said could not be heard by the CCTV due to the sound of the woman’s screaming and his soft voice. He then explained he hid in a nearby alleyway and looked back at the scene for around 30 minutes so he could consider going back to ‘explain the misunderstanding’.
Mr Moll accused Mr Mahmoudi of following the woman, ‘getting more and more sexually aroused’. The defendant denied this.
Mr Moll also accused Mr Mahmoudi of changing his account about when he first saw the woman, and embellishing his account of the alleyway encounter. The defendant denied this too.
Asked how his DNA got to the top of the complainant’s tights, Mr Mahmoudi said: “I do not know exactly how it’s there but we both fell on the ground. It’s possible when I was trying to get her up my hands touched her tights…”
In his questioning, defence counsel David Harounoff reminded jurors Mr Mahmoudi told police his penis was too small to have raped the woman.
Asked about his use of online sex chats, Mr Mahmoudi said he just wanted to check if the sites ‘were real or a sham’.
Mr Mahmoudi, of Booth House on Whitechapel Road, denies rape and attempted rape. The trial under Judge Timothy Green continues.
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