AN ALLEGED rapist told a jury he repeatedly took part in rape role-play with a former partner – but insisted it was purely a consensual fetish.

Former York St John University student John Kevin O’Neil said at York Crown Court yesterday that he and his ex-partner had found violent forms of sex soothing and calming.

“It’s a kind of therapy,” he said, adding that he had been homeless since he had had to leave the university when his money ran out, living for a time in a tent.

O’Neil, 44, of no fixed address, denies raping a different woman last July.

Under cross examination, he alleged that sex with her had been gentle as well as consensual. “I am telling the truth and she is lying,” he said. He claimed he had been cuddling the woman on the sofa at her home when they began kissing, and she had her arms around him.

He claimed that for the following two months, they continued to chat on Facebook, right up until the evening before she made a complaint of rape last September, when she finished a message to him with the words: “Take care X.”

O’Neil said he had been absolutely shocked when police arrested him. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said.

He denied claims by the woman that he told her about his violent sexual preferences on the evening of the alleged rape, saying he had told her about this during a conversation about a week earlier.

After he had concluded his evidence and had lunch, he asked to be recalled and cried in the witness box.

He denied prosecution suggestions that he had asked for the recall because he thought he hadn’t been convincing enough before lunch and had deliberately broken down.

O’Neil’s friend for seven years, Emma Rogers, who said she knew he liked violent sex, described him as “a kind, friendly and really lovely person, very gentle, caring and willing to do anything for his friends”.

The trial continues.