YAHOO
A footballer raped a sleeping woman twice in one night and sent naked photos of her to his teammates asking: “Anyone want a go?”, a court has heard.
Michael Emery, 33, a reserve goalkeeper for Warrington Rylands FC, invited the woman to stay in his hotel room after his team won a non-league cup final at Wembley on 22 May 2021.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, initially had consensual sex with the defendant, which she described as “vanilla” and “quite pedestrian”, before falling asleep.
She woke up to find Emery biting her “really hard” on her left thigh and breast, St Albans crown court heard. The woman said “ow” and twice told him she did not want to have sex, but he allegedly raped her.
She “played dead” when she woke to him biting her in several places and raping her for a second time, the court heard.
The prosecutor Charlotte Newell KC said the alleged rapes took place at a hotel in Watford after the club’s FA Vase final victory. The woman had had six or seven bottles of Moretti beer over eight hours that evening and was “merry but not drunk”.
Opening the case, Newell said: “Whilst she was asleep, Mr Emery demonstrated his total disregard for the autonomy and consent of the woman he had intercourse with by taking photographs of her naked without her knowledge and distributing them shortly before 4am amongst his teammates.”
She said Emery sent a photo of the sleeping woman with her breasts exposed to two WhatsApp group chats, comprising 70 people. He allegedly wrote: “Anyone want a go?” and added a crying with laughter emoji. A participant in the chat replied “show us her gash” and Emery allegedly sent a further photo showing the woman’s vaginal area.
