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An Ottawa drug dealer accused of drugging, raping and videotaping more than a dozen women — mostly ByWard Market bar staff — took the stand in his own defence on Thursday and was quick to cry as he portrayed himself as a victim the night he was arrested on charges of beating his pregnant girlfriend.

She lost the baby the day after his arrest.

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Phillip Wilson, 33, was arrested on March 11, 2015 after a neighbour reported what sounded like a domestic dispute in the upstairs Nelson Street apartment. Ottawa police found Wilson’s pregnant girlfriend bloodied, bruised and unconscious. She was hospitalized for several injuries, including a fractured vertebra.

On the stand under examination-in-chief by defence lawyer Trevor Brown, Wilson denied beating his pregnant girlfriend for stealing cocaine from his safe. He denied kicking her in the stomach and testified that, on the night in question, he came home and found his girlfriend unconscious on the bed. He said he yelled for her to wake up, and yanked at her arm, and then tried to stand her up, and that’s when he claimed she fell and hit her head on the dresser. The former Carleton Ravens basketball player (he was kicked off the team for smoking weed in a stairwell at the university) testified that he wasn’t quick enough to catch her fall.