Magazine publisher Antioco Piras denies rape

A magazine publisher yesterday denied raping a woman at a lavish party and insisted she invented the story after he spurned her advances.

Antioco Piras, 36, is accused of raping the woman after spiking her drink during the party at a private members’ club in London.

Yesterday Piras, who is co-founder of glossy food magazine Four, told jurors he helped get her to a bedroom at the Home House club because she was drunk. He claimed she kissed him as they lay on the bed, at which point he told her: ‘I don’t think this is right.’

He said the 21-year-old was ‘put out’, ‘not happy’ and ‘frustrated’ at the rejection and called a taxi to take her home.

Southwark Crown Court heard that Piras had ordered five bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne at £180 each during the Christmas party. It was an additional cost to what was already on a pre-paid bill that he was picking up, which included liqueurs, vodkas and beers.

The alleged victim insisted she had drunk only two glasses of champagne before Piras handed her a different drink which made her feel ill. She told the court: ‘He gave me the drink and then I started being really sick in the toilet.’

Recalling events on the night of December 20, 2014, Piras told the jury: ‘She could hardly walk. I led her upstairs and put her on the bed and told her that if she needed me I was just downstairs, and I left the room. I felt like I was protecting her. There was a 21-year-old woman in my room that was my responsibility.’

As the party broke up a couple of hours later, at about 2.30am, Piras said he returned to the room to check on her and charge his phone.

He added: ‘I took off my shoes and shirt and laid down on the bed next to her. She was still fully clothed. She had her shoes on.

‘She looked at me and smiled. We kissed, at which point I said, “I don’t think this is right.” ’

Asked if the truth was he had spiked her drink and raped her, Piras replied: ‘No. It is a lowly, disgusting thing to do.

‘What kind of person would I be to do such a thing?’

After the woman reported him, Piras claimed in a police interview that he ‘held her up’ but did not carry her to the bedroom. He told Detective Constable Dan Cooke: ‘She was aware of what she was doing but she was fairly drunk.’

Private club: Home House, the venue for the champagne-fuelled party in London

He added that when he later returned to the room she was going ‘in and out of sleep’.

He told officers: ‘I wanted to check up on her and charge my phone.’ After plugging in his phone he said he lay on the bed and began texting friends.

‘She put her head on my shoulder and went in for a kiss,’ he said.

Piras said he ‘indulged’ in the ‘intense’ kissing, but added in his police interview: ‘That is where it stopped, my mind kicked in. She clearly understood I didn’t want to do it any more.’

Piras, from Zimbabwe, has no registered address in the UK. He denies rape.

The trial continues.