Kisses meant nothing, rape trial woman says

A STUDENT who said she was raped admitted kissing her alleged attacker several times in the years she had known him, but told a jury yesterday: 'A kiss is just a kiss, it didn't mean anything.'

The 21-year-old woman denied leading on Austen Donnellan, also 21, a student at King's College, London University. Mr Donnellan pleads not guilty to raping her as she lay drunken in her room after a Christmas party last year.

She told an Old Bailey court that when students kissed no one one took it seriously. But she agreed: 'I began to realise that Austen didn't regard a kiss as any other student would and consequently he might have thought I was leading him on. I was worried.'

The woman admitted she often lost her inhibitions after several drinks. It was usually on these occasions when she had kissed Mr Donnellan. But until the rape, she said, he had been 'a perfect gentleman'.

The trial continues today.