He also denied assaulting second woman, claiming she moved his hand to her breast

He told the jury she sent him a photo on Facebook of herself wearing a bra

Durham University student Louis Richardson, who is accused of raping a fellow undergraduate, said the woman flirted with him and sent him suggestive photographs in her bra after the alleged attack

A woman who has accused a Durham University student of rape sent him a photo of her breasts and called him a ‘sexy menace’ in the weeks after the incident, a court heard.

Louis Richardson, 21, has been accused of raping the fellow undergraduate after a night out in March 2014, while she was ‘crazy drunk’.

The former secretary of the university’s debating society told the jury yesterday they had consensual sex that night.

Richardson said they continued to sleep together ‘very frequently’, adding: ‘I thought it was going well.’ They called each other ‘darling’, and in one Facebook message, she told him: ‘I’ll let you spank me.’

She also called him a ‘sexy menace’ and sent him a photo of her cleavage with the message: ‘Present for you, darling.’

Philippa McAtasney QC, defending Richardson, asked him: ‘Did you think anything was wrong at all?’

He replied: ‘That’s not the sort of exchange I would expect of someone that was annoyed at me.’

Richardson told the court that his alleged victim’s boyfriend posed as her online to accuse him of the sexual assault.

He said he received a Facebook message apparently from the woman saying they couldn’t speak to each other any more because she didn’t want to ‘lose’ her boyfriend.

Richardson told a jury he was ‘devastated’, but replied ‘fair enough’ and decided it was best to ‘take it on the chin’. However, a more serious message followed, saying: ‘I have been doing some thinking. I consider our last time rape. I said no and you did it anyway. I ask you not to contact me again... active immediately.’

Richardson said he then received a text from the woman saying that she had not sent the messages, and adding: ‘He wrote it.’ Asked what he made of the online conversation, he said it seemed as if the woman’s boyfriend was ‘intervening’.

He told the court: ‘I knew I had not raped her. I knew she knew I had not raped her. I thought it was seeming like a petty threat done by a boyfriend who was probably a bit over-paranoid.’

Richardson said he was ‘shocked and devastated’ when he was arrested for rape.

Several months later, two university newspapers revealed he had been arrested, and a second woman claimed to police that he had indecently assaulted her at a party.

The 21-year-old (pictured outside Durham Crown Court today), from Jersey, today told a jury how his alleged victim called him a 'sexy menace' in a series of flirtatious Facebook messages

Two months after the alleged rape, the first woman mentioned having to call her boyfriend, and Richardson said he ‘started to gather he must be more than just a hook-up’.

She told Richardson the boyfriend didn’t know about them and ‘neither does he care any more’. That night, she told him she had a ‘little rampage’ and self-harmed by carving a word on her upper thigh.

Durham Crown Court heard she told Richardson she was going abroad on holiday with her boyfriend in June. Days before she left they had dinner together.

Richardson said: ‘She said her boyfriend had stopped having girls on the side and she thought she should stop having people on the side too. She implied it was about me.’

He said his interpretation was she chose her boyfriend over him and he felt ‘hurt’ and ‘disappointed’.

Later that evening they were ‘kissing and cuddling’ on the sofa at a friend’s house. Richardson said her bra ‘would have been exposed’ but he denied any improper behaviour. The woman claims he indecently assaulted her by deliberately pulling down her top so another man could see her breasts, and said: ‘Show him your t*** – everyone else has seen them.’

The former secretary of the university's debating society is said to have raped the woman while she was 'crazy drunk' after they returned home from Klute nightclub (pictured) together

Richardson denied making lewd remarks. He said they left together after a friend told them to ‘get a room’. They walked to his shared house but did not have sex. ‘She said no – I respected that,’ he said.

The court was told how, the next day, the alleged victim messaged him to say he must have looked like a ‘high-class, educated, voluntary tramp’ with a book in the pocket of his velvet coat.

Richardson told the jury: ‘It was the same jokey banter that has been going on for weeks before.’ The banter stopped when the woman went on holiday and sent a different kind of message – allegedly written by the boyfriend – on her Facebook account.

It read: ‘I don’t want to hurt you but I feel it’s best we don’t speak any more. You know (boyfriend’s name) is very special to me and my betrayal of him has caused trust issues. I don’t want to lose him, that means I have to lose you.

‘I’m sorry I am such a terrible bitch.’

Richardson then received the ‘rape’ claim message.

He is also accused of sexually assaulting another woman four months later by stroking her indecently as she lay in bed during a student party.

When confronted about the incident by a friend of the woman in a Facebook exchange, Richardson wrote: ‘I must apologise profusely to all parties concerned.’