Brighton rape case defendant cries as he describes finding woman dead

A man accused of raping two women cried as he described realising that one of them had died.

Stephen Edwards, 48, of Merevale, Hollingdean, faltered as he answered questions from his defence counsel Nick Valios at Hove Crown Court yesterday (Tuesday 17 December).

Edwards said that he fell asleep after having sex with Pauline Jenkins, 46, at her home in Rosebery Avenue in Woodingdean on Friday 4 February 2011.

Although he had first met her more than a year before, he also knew her as Lucy Lou, her name on the dating website Plenty of Fish.

The next morning he woke up on her settee. He said: “I suddenly woke up feeling very cold.

“I turned over to my left and I saw Pauline Jenkins in still roughly the same position as she was the night before.

“I saw blood. I panicked. I then quickly went to my phone and called the ambulance.”

Mr Valios said that the call was made at 6.48am, adding: “We’ve heard that call played in court.

Cold

“When you first saw her and called the ambulance did you realise that she was dead?”

Edwards said: “I called out her name. I forgot her name so I was calling, ‘Lucy Lou! Wake up! Wake up!’

“I tried to shake her but she was cold.”

Mr Valios said: “You were instructed from that call to put her on the floor but you didn’t?”

Edwards said: “She was too heavy to move.”

He described previously meeting another woman for sex after making contact with her through the Plenty of Fish website, the jury was told.

It is illegal to publish the woman’s name.

Edwards described meeting the woman in August and September 2010 on five occasions. On four of those occasions, he said, they had sex at his flat in the evening and again the next morning.

Threesome

On one occasion, he said: “I asked her if she’d ever had a threesome before. She said yes she had.

“There was a lady she knew she’d kissed in the back of a taxi on the way home one night.

“I asked her if she was willing to do a threesome with me and she said yes. She said she was going to contact her friend for us.”

The woman’s friend pulled out at the last minute because she didn’t have a babysitter but Edwards thought that the woman had been lying to him about setting up a threesome.

He admitted going on about it and said: “When things started turning nasty or unpleasant I called her a bitch and a whore and said I’d started seeing someone else and she’s better in bed than you.”

Asked why, he replied: “I was hurting, I suppose.”

He denied threatening violence and said of their time together: “The only thing she complained about at the time was about me biting her nipples and I apologised to her.

“I just gave her a few love bites on her chest and she gave me a few on my neck.”

After relations soured between Edwards and the woman, her daughter intervened.

Threatening

Edwards said: “She was threatening me over the internet on Plenty of Fish asking where I lived saying her boyfriend was going to beat me up.”

Michael Warren, prosecuting, cross-examined Edwards and asked him: “How long did you go on sending her unpleasant text messages and voicemails?

“She was still receiving them after (Wednesday) 6 October when she was in Mill View.”

Edwards said that he spoke to the woman once after she was admitted to Mill View Hospital in Hangleton. He said: “She sounded groggy.

“I asked her if she wanted me to come and see her and she said no. I never contacted her again after that.”

Mr Warren asked whether he had told her or sent her messages saying “Die, bitch!” and telling her that she should kill herself? He said that he hadn’t.

Edwards denies two charges of rape.

His trial continues.