A YORK charity founder allegedly raped a woman twice after her drink had been spiked, a jury has heard.

The young woman alleged she had no memory about what had happened after she started to watch a film with Gordon Michael Campbell-Thomas, 72, in his flat.

Opening the prosecution against the charity founder, Brian Russell alleged that the woman behaved so bizarrely in an Uber taxi on her way home from the flat, the taxi driver reported the incident to his operator.

When she arrived home, she behaved in an irrational manner unlike anything her housemates had seen from her before, including when they had seen her after drinking.

When she contacted Campbell-Thomas after she woke the next morning, he told her they had had sex together.

“I’m shocked that someone had done this to me,” she alleged giving evidence.

She also alleged she had never felt as she did after going to Campbell-Thomas’ flat.

“We were watching a film and that is when my memory goes blank. I have memory up to a certain point that evening and then it is completely gone, which is terrifying,” she alleged.

Mr Russell told the jury at York Crown Court: “I have no evidence to suggest Campbell-Thomas gave her any substance which would have affected her memory.

“It is the complainant’s evidence, clearly, to put it in layman’s terms, she was spiked and therefore was incapable and therefore didn’t have the capacity to consent to any sexual activity.

“That explains her lack of memory, her strange and uncharacteristic behaviour observed by her house mates.”

Campbell-Thomas, of Ascot Way, Acomb, denies two charges of rape.

York Press: York Crown CourtYork Crown Court

In a police interview, he alleged that the two had had sex together, that the woman had initiated the sexual activity between them and that it was consensual.

Judge Simon Hickey told the jury that a woman can only give consent to sex if she does so by choice at a time when she has the freedom and capacity to make that choice.

Mr Russell said the woman and Campbell-Thomas had socialised together.

“Certainly nothing romantic had happened between them,” the prosecution barrister alleged.

“Nothing had happened more than a peck on the cheek.”

In November 2020, the woman and a friend had gone round to Campbell-Thomas’ flat in the evening and had something to drink together.

After a while the friend had left as he was going to meet his girlfriend and had no concerns about leaving the other two together.

According to Campbell-Thomas’ account later to police, he had given the woman the use of his bank card so she could buy some more wine at a local Sainsbury’s store and they had sat watching the film sitting on different sofas.

When defence barrister Sean Smith suggested to the woman that she had then initiated sex, she repeatedly denied the suggestions.

The trial continues.