A marketing guru has been cleared of raping his internet date after telling a jury that he acted out role-play after his accuser introduced him to submissive sex.
Max Lawrie, 38, spent seven hours in a police cell and had the allegations hanging over him for nearly two years until he was unanimously acquitted.
He met the 27-year-old woman after they communicated on an internet dating site and she began sending him clips involving dominant males and submissive females.
However, she told Blackfriars Crown Court that Mr Lawrie repeatedly raped her after texting ‘I want you’ at 1am on St. Valentine’s Day, 2016.
Max Lawrie, 38, spent seven hours in a police cell and had the allegations hanging over him for nearly two years until he was unanimously acquitted at Blackfriars Crown Court
‘The type of sex she was describing was the norm for them as a couple. It was the sort of sex she was into,’ Aisling Byrnes, defending, told the jury.
‘We have seen the type of stuff she introduced Mr Lawrie to and he was trying to show her he was willing to take part in this type of sex.’
The woman even had a blog containing images depicting dominant and submissive sexual activity and exchanged explicit WhatsApp messages with Mr Lawrie.
‘Throughout her messages are references to grabbing her hair and grabbing her throat,’ added Miss Byrnes, adding the woman replied ‘Yes please,’ to the prospect of being bitten.
She told the jury a drunken Mr Lawrie, who had been celebrating his birthday, arrived at her £600,000 Belsize Park flat in the early hours and forced himself on her.
‘He said “You’re f***ing mine, mine,” like he owned me.
‘He took my trousers off and moved my pants to the side and was holding my legs up in the air and slapped me around the face and put his hand around my neck.
‘He sort of grabbed my hair and pulled me and slapped me across the face again.
‘He pulled me down on my knees in front of him. He had sex with me again and was holding me around the neck really tight and grabbed my hair and he spat on me.’
However, during her police interview the young woman failed to reveal the couple were enjoying a dominant-submissive relationship, which she had encouraged.
Mr Lawrie told the jury it was the first time he had ever been in such a relationship and found it very exciting.
Prosecutor Miss Catherine Milsom said: ‘The defendant was determined to have sex with her that night.
‘She did not consent and just wanted to go to sleep and was moving away from him, wriggling away from him. She was telling him “no”.’
The following morning the couple went out for breakfast and kissed goodbye at the train station, but the woman says this was just to get Mr Lawrie out of her flat.
Mr Lawrie, of Hackney, was found not guilty of three counts of rape and one count of attempted rape.