by Keith Hunt

A soldier raped a girl after lifting her off her feet outside a nightclub in the early hours and carrying her off to a nearby car park, a court heard.

Friends of the teenager and other witnesses saw James Walpole kneeling between her legs having intercourse with her, it was alleged.

When approached, the 21-year-old squaddie ran off, Maidstone Crown Court was told.

Bouncers at Liquid & Envy at Lockmeadow in Maidstone had shortly before asked the teenager to leave because they believed she was drunk.

But she told police she only had three drinks that evening and she believed the last one had been spiked.

Michael Riley, prosecuting, said Walpole took advantage of the girl while she was affected by “some episode or another, which caused her to be incapable and not in control of herself”.

The teenager said she remembered feeling “weird” and sick in the club and a man sitting next to her on the steps outside.

She said she also remembered the man touching her intimately and pushing him away, but recalled nothing else until she “woke up” in an ambulance.

A jury of seven men and five women was shown CCTV film of the girl falling over in the club, sitting on the steps outside with Walpole and him lifting her up and carrying her off to a car park next to the David Lloyd gym.

The teenager had gone to the club with friends in January. While there she said she had three double vodka and Red Bull drinks.

Mr Riley said when she was at the bar, a man spoke to her and made a comment about “ladies first”.

She went to the toilet and then “came over all funny”. She went to get some air. She spoke to her boyfriend by phone and told him she wanted to go home.

“She was not feeling very well,” said the prosecutor. “She fell over again. Things got blurry from then on. Bouncers told her she had too much to drink and escorted her out.”

While she was sitting on steps outside the cinema with a friend Walpole, who was based at Invicta Park barracks in the town, sat next to them.

The friend left to go to the toilets.

“It was then the defendant began to take sexual advantage of her,” said Mr Riley. “She has not got a great deal of recollection. She has been told what others saw.

“She told the boy she did not feel well. She felt sick. Everything was blurry. She couldn’t walk properly. He began touching her.

“She pushed him away and said no, but he continued to touch her. The next thing she remembers is being in an ambulance and her friends around her.”

Walpole, of Preston, Lancashire , denies rape and assault by penetration, claiming he did not have full sex with the girl and that any touching was by consent.

The trial continues.