"It's a pretty tawdry story. It's a story of a very brief encounter, in a lane ... "

For Luke Andrew Lazarus, 25, that "tawdry" encounter was having consensual sex in a laneway with a woman he met on the dance floor at his father's Kings Cross nightclub. For the woman, that encounter was rape.

Luke Lazarus leaves court earlier this week. Credit:Michele Mossop

Mr Lazarus entered the witness box in the NSW District Court on Thursday to give evidence in his judge-alone retrial for the alleged sexual assault of the woman, then 18, in the alleyway behind Soho nightclub in the early hours of May 12, 2013.

The court heard that Mr Lazarus, who worked in a marketing role at the club, first approached the woman after they made eye contact when she was on the dance floor.