Heaven security guard ‘a proven liar' who targeted drunk woman, rape trial told

Powys County Times

29-05-2025

A Heaven security guard accused of raping a 19-year-old woman is 'a proven liar' who targeted her after realising she was drunk, a court has heard.
Morenikeji Adewole, 47, of Dartford, Kent, is on trial accused of raping the teenager in his car near the central London club in the early hours of November 1 2024, which he denies.
Jurors were previously told that the woman was visibly drunk and stumbling and that a person can be too intoxicated to give proper consent.
Giving her closing speech at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday, prosecutor Marion Smullen said the complainant, who cannot be identified, had drunk an unusually high amount of alcohol on the night of the alleged incident, and that Adewole took advantage of her state and 'jolly well knew what he was doing'.
She told jurors: 'The only person who was sober that night was Mr Adewole. All of those young people that night had been drinking.
'He targeted somebody that he knew was drunk.'
The alleged victim had queued outside the club for around two hours with five friends for a Halloween event but only three of the group were allowed in.
Toxicology reports conducted after the alleged incident showed the average alcohol level recorded in the complainant and the group of friends was three-and-a-half times over the legal driving limit, the prosecutor said.
Ms Smullen said: 'That young girl did not have capacity. She was so drunk that she did not know what she was doing.
'Mr Adewole could not have had any reasonable belief that she was consenting.'
The defendant previously pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of an identification document with improper intention, and had been employed at Heaven using a false ID under the name Olusola Julius Alabi, the trial previously heard.
He also gave a fake name to police when he was arrested and was only correctly identified later through fingerprint evidence.
Ms Smullen said the convictions showed Adewole had 'lied consistently' since January 2024, when he began working at the nightclub.
'[He is] a proven liar, somebody who is quite happy to lie when it suits him,' the prosecutor said.
Jurors were previously played the alleged victim's police interview, in which she told officers she was a Christian who was 'saving herself until marriage' and felt 'violated'.
She said she had attempted to push the security guard away when they were together in his car but he carried on and penetrated her vagina.
Ms Smullen said the woman's testimony was at complete odds with Adewole's version of events.
She told jurors: 'We have got this young girl who has basically decided she doesn't want sex before marriage.
'But according to Mr Adewole, she was desperate for sex, so desperate she throws away her own beliefs in order to have sex with him.'
The prosecutor asked members of the jury to consider all the evidence in the case 'with a scientific and careful eye'.
Ms Smullen said abrasions identified on and around the complainant's vagina during a medical examination were caused by penetration from the defendant.
Adewole claimed in his evidence during the trial that there was sexual activity but he did not have penetrative intercourse with the woman.
Police were contacted at 2.59pm on November 1 when the alleged victim reported being raped, the trial previously heard.
Officers traced Adewole through his car and he was arrested at Heaven nightclub on November 11 2024.