George Glendon, 22, is accused of raping the young woman after meeting her at a nightclub in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire
Former Manchester City player George Glendon said he was ‘terrified’ when he was arrested on suspicion of rape but claims it was the woman who instigated sex after a night out.
Glendon, 22, of Outwood Drive, Heald Green, Cheadle, near Stockport, Cheshire, denies raping the woman on February 21, 2016.
The prosecution at Grimsby Crown Court claims that the woman was so ‘falling over drunk’ that she was ‘incapable of stringing a sentence together’.
The 19-year-old woman could not remember what happened to her apart from that she ended up in a man’s bedroom with most of her clothes off.
She was ‘really drunk’ and had earlier been ‘repeatedly falling over in the toilets’ at the Lite House club in Cleethorpes.
Glendon took her to the Humberston home of one of his friends by taxi after helping her when she fell over in the club in the early hours.
The Grimsby woman, now 21, could remember very little of what happened, the court heard.
Defence barrister Judy Khan QC has begun asking George Glendon questions.
He confirmed that he had no previous convictions.
The former City player told the court that, after leaving school in the Stockport area at the age of 16, he was offered a two-year football scholarship.
He was with Manchester City between the ages of 16 and 18 but had been ‘scouted for City’ at a very early age.
He had signed a contract at the age of nine but had been noticed since the age of six.
After the scholarship, he was ‘offered a professional contract’ by Manchester City.
‘I never officially played for the first team,’ he said.
But he was ‘on the bench’ as a sub for the side. He now played for Fleetwood Town.
Former Manchester City and England youth player George Glendon (pictured playing for City’s under-21s) has appeared in court accused of rape
George Glendon now plays in midfield for Fleetwood Town and is pictured, front and centre, during Saturday’s FA Cup match against Leicester
Glendon said that he was initially on loan from Manchester City from August 2016 but moved permanently to Fleetwood in January last year.
He knew his friend, Adam Drury, through football because Mr Drury ‘played for Manchester City as well’, although in the year above Glendon.
He told the court that he lived with his parents, sister and brother, who had all been at court for the case.
Glendon told the court that he was five out of 10 on a scale of drunkenness when he was at the Lite House, Cleethorpes.
He was talking to the woman about the football clubs he and his friends had played for.
Glendon said he was five out of ten on a drunkennes scale when he met the woman at the Lite House, pictured, in Cleethorpes
‘The chat we were having was kind of banter,’ he said. ‘I was enjoying the banter.’
As he was leaving, a woman in front of him fell but he did not realise at the time that it was the same person.
He went to see if she was all right and she said: ‘Oh, it’s you.’ He helped her up.
‘She seemed quite drunk,’ he said.
They sat on a wooden bench outside and she put her legs over him.
‘We just carried on the chat,’ he said. ‘We were flirting. Cuddling each other.
‘I think we shared a kiss outside on the bench. It was a two-way thing. I asked where she lived and where she was going but she wasn’t telling and was saying ‘I’ll come back to your mate’s’.
‘We were kissing in the back of the taxi. A two-way thing.’
When they arrived at the home of his footballing friend Adam Drury in Humberston, she ‘fell to her knees’ outside the taxi and he ‘helped her back up’.
Glendon told the court: ‘I went upstairs. She went upstairs. She went up before me.
‘I get up the stairs and she is in the room where I was meant to be staying. She was in the bed. She was under the covers.
‘I seen her dress on the floor. She had already taken it off before I got in. I didn’t help.
‘I remember going into Adam’s room to see him. Adam just asked who was back with me.
‘I just said that a girl had come back with me and I didn’t know who she was. Adam came to see if he knew her.
‘I went back into the room. She came and started kissing my neck. She came from behind on the bed.
‘Adam said the taxi was on its way because he didn’t want her in the house.’
Glendon, pictured playing for Fleetwood in February 2016, denies raping the woman he met in a Cleethorpes club
He claimed: ‘She just kept on kissing. I ended up laying back on the bed and kissing on the lips. Me and her were just kissing and snogging and doing a bit of foreplay.
‘She was encouraging it. She took the first move by kissing me and I was kissing her back. Her body was moving.
‘She seemed like she was enjoying it. She tries to get on top of me while I carry on kissing. She pulled my jeans down so they are off.’
He claimed they had sex at her instigation.
‘I was enjoying it,’ he said. ‘I was aroused.’
But he claimed the sex lasted only for ‘around five seconds’.
He added: ‘Adam was outside on my landing and this was putting me off. I could just see his shadow.
‘He was saying that the taxi was on its way. She kept on kissing my neck to carry on.
‘I just tell her that the taxi is nearly here and she has to go. She looked a bit mad and a bit embarrassed. I just ask if she would put her dress on.
‘She was refusing to put it on. She was saying it was wet and she didn’t want to put it on.’
The taxi arrived and the woman got in.
Asked how he felt when later told by police he was being arrested on suspicion of rape, Glendon said: ‘I was absolutely terrified, thinking the worst and thinking about what my mum and dad would think.
‘I was petrified. My head wasn’t really thinking straight. I was absolutely terrified.’
Asked whether at any time he thought the woman did not know where she was or what she was doing, he replied: ‘No, never.’
The trial, before Judge Peter Kelson QC, continues.
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