A POLICE officer today told a jury how a serial rape suspect told him "I'm not going to see the light for this am I" following his arrest.

PC Malcolm Smithers had taken Antoni Imiela to the exercise yard at Folkestone police station so he could have a cigarette.

While smoking, Mr Imiela made the remark and then said his chances of promotion at work were "out the window now", the jury at Maidstone Crown Court was told.

The suspect later agreed to sign PC Smithers' notes admitting they were a true record of what was said, but only with the condition noted that his words were taken out of context.

Simon Russell-Flint QC said the defendant's actual words were "I would not see the light of day for this", something which he labelled a small but important difference. PC Smithers disputed this was the case.

Mr Imiela, flanked by three prison officers, sat with his arms folded, looking straight ahead as he listened to the evidence.

Officers had swooped on the 49-year-old, just before midnight on December 2 2002, on the M20 as he drove coastbound just past junction five near Maidstone.

His blue Citroen Xantia, which would later be seized and examined, was pulled on to the hard shoulder and blocked off by two marked police cars.

Mr Imiela, of Heathside, Appledore, near Ashford, made no reply as he was arrested, cautioned and handcuffed. Further vehicles arrived at the scene and he was then driven to Folkestone.

In the car he asked Det Insp John Lewis if his wife Christine had been told about what had happened, said he could have been arrested at home and complained his cigarettes had been left in his car.

The arrest came about, the court heard, after a DNA sample taken from Mr Imiela the month before, was found to match the profile of the man who raped a 10-year-old girl in Stanhope in November 2001.

Mr Imiela, a railway maintenance worker, denies nine charges of rape, one of attempted rape, indecent assault and kidnap between November 2001 and November 2002.

The trial continues.