A TEENAGER was raped on a Colchester roundabout by two men she had made friends with over the internet, a court has heard.

Annie Davidson

A TEENAGER was raped on a Colchester roundabout by two men she had made friends with over the internet, a court has heard.

The 17-year-old was allegedly attacked by Jean-Claude Rugero and a 17-year-old, who cannot be named because of his age, in a garden in the centre of St Botolph's roundabout.

Chelmsford Crown Court was told yesterday that the defendants and their alleged victim first began communicating over the internet two years prior to the incident on August 12 last year.

Stephanie Farrimond, prosecuting, told the jury of seven women and five men that the teenage girl was a “regular user” of social networking sites and began chatting to Rugero, who went by the name JC.

A year or so later she met his best friend on-line who, Mrs Farrimond said, was the 17-year-old defendant.

The teenage girl gave her number to Rugero, who passed it on to his co-defendant, and at one point she sent the 17-year-old a picture of her private parts using her camera phone, the court heard.

Miss Farrimond said on August 11, 2008, Rugero, 19, contacted the girl to say he would be coming down to Colchester to see her. The girl later told police she had never met either defendant in person before the night of the alleged attack.

The court heard that the next night the girl went into Colchester town centre with her sister-in-law and they bought vodka, cider and Red Bull.

“She (the victim) was acting as if she was drunk and was quite loud and excitable,” said Mrs Farrimond.

Toxicology tests later revealed that at the time of the 10pm attack she was just over twice the drink drive limit.

The jury was told that the alleged victim's sister-in-law went home and shortly after the girl “was feeling quite drunk” and decided to return to a relative's house.

She was heading towards St Botolph's when five men in a car called her over and then one said her name, the court heard, and two men walked over to her.

The men, alleged to be Rugero and his co-defendant, followed the girl into the underpass of the roundabout and when she tried to walk away they pulled her back into a garden in the middle of the roundabout, the jury was told.

Miss Farrimond said the 17-year-old defendant raped her first while Rugero held her shoulders and then “immediately after he had finished Rugero took his turn”.

Rugero, of Hainult, in the London borough of Redbridge, denies one count of rape and one count of aiding and abetting rape.

His co-defendant denies one count of rape. He claims the victim consented while Rugero denies he had sex with her at all.

- The trial continues.