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

Independent

2 days ago

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.
He added that the woman had earlier told him she was 25 years old but in the car she said she was 19 and he 'stopped immediately'.
Stephan Alfred, defending Adewole, compared the security guard's case to 'a Victorian trial of morality' and said the evidence pointed 'far more in the direction of Mr Adewole being accurate than the other way round'.
Examining the alleged victim's evidence in his closing speech, he told jurors: 'This young lady professes to remember the conscious bits and does not remember the unconscious bits.
'She does not have a memory of quite a few other significant moments during the course of that evening.'
Mr Alfred told jurors that CCTV footage showing the woman getting back into Adewole's car 'in a kindly fashion' did not fit with the actions of someone who had just been raped.
He said: 'According to every single one of the friends, she said words to the effect of 'I had sex with the bouncer'.
'Is someone whose aim is to get into the club by 'f****** a bouncer' the sign of someone who lacks the capability of making a choice?
'There is a purpose behind it.'
The alleged victim denied making such statements when put to her during her evidence.
The barrister asked the jury to consider how Adewole 'puts his hi-vis jacket back on and just saunters back to work' following the alleged offence, suggesting he might try and make himself 'a bit more scarce' if it had occurred.
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.
The jury retired to consider its verdict on Thursday afternoon.