A BLACKPOOL FC star allegedly raped a teenage girl after inviting her to ‘Netflix and chill’ at his home, a court heard today.
Striker Beryly ‘Bez’ Lubala, 24, is accused of grabbing the 18-year-old by her hair and telling her to stop making noise and “be a good girl” before raping her.
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The woman, now aged 20, told cops she made it clear she did not want to have sex with the player in numerous text messages before visiting his home.
She drove to his place in Horsham, near Crawley, West Sussex on September 13, 2019, when Lubala was playing for Crawley Town.
The woman told the court she had engaged in sexual activity with the Championship footballer on two separate occasions before the alleged attack.
But they had since “been friends for ages”, so she accepted his request to go round to his house to watch Netflix.
The jury at Lewes Crown Court heard Lubala had contacted her again after the woman had ended another relationship.
He allegedly text the woman saying he only wanted to watch Netflix and chill, before she eventually agreed to visit him a third time.
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The court then heard a series of emotional voice messages recorded by the woman as she drove herself home.
She said in the recording: “I said no and he carried on. He turned into a different person.
“There was no kind of listening to what I did and didn’t want. It was just like a stranger.”
At the time of the alleged rape, Lbala was attracting attention from Championship and Premier League scouts after joining Crawley Town from Birmingham City.
The striker then joined Blackpool a year later in 2020 on a three-year contract.
In a phone call to the police, prosecutor Richard Hearnden told the jury they could hear the woman say she felt “violated” as she sobbed.
“I drove up to my friend’s house,” she said. “We’ve been friends for ages. We have slept together in the past.
“We were just chilling and it just happened and I didn’t want him to. I told him I didn’t want him to. I’m just driving home in the dark, I can’t stop crying.”
The pair are understood to have consensually slept together on one occasion in a hotel on the day he arrived in Crawley and again in a house he was sharing with other young players before the alleged incident.
‘I’M NOT A LIAR’
Mr Hearnden told the court: “She wasn’t raped by a stranger or outdoors or in the street or in an alleyway.
“She was raped by a man she knew, in his house. She wasn’t in a relationship with the man but they had been intimate before.”
The woman denied she had invented the allegation as she regretted having sex with him after the jury heard she tried to retract her allegation twice before going to trial.
Under intense cross-examination from defence barrister Julia Smart QC, the woman told the court: “I’m not a liar.”
She continued: ” I wouldn’t have put myself through two-and-a-half years of trauma if I had just regretted something.”
The 20-year-old said she had attempted to withdraw her evidence before the trial as she has a “different life now.”
“I have a girlfriend and a career and I thought this would put me ten steps back and it has.”
Beryly Lubala denies raping the young woman at his home in Horsham on September 13, 2019.
The trial at Lewes Crown Court in Brighton continues.
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