A woman woke up in the middle of the night to find a man raping her, a court has been told.

The woman was in the “security and comfort of her own home” in September last year thinking she was alone when she awoke to find the naked man on her bed, Swindon Crown Court was told on Wednesday (August 10).

He then proceeded to rape her and said “I’m going to have to take what I want”, prosecutors told a jury today.

They claim that man is former Trowbridge resident Ross Grant, who has denied rape and is standing trial this week.

On the first day of his trial, prosecutor Charles Gabb said: “This is indeed a truly shocking way to wake a lady in the middle of the night.

“She was asleep in what she perceived to be the security and comfort of her own home, in her own bed.

“The shocking way she woke up, there was suddenly a man on her bed, he was naked.”

Mr Gabb said the complainant managed to “squirm free” and after shouting for him to get off, he soon left.

He left the house and went on the run for five months, before eventually being tracked down to Oxford, the court heard.

Prosecutors claim that the two had been talking and had consensual sex the previous weekend, but “alarm bells started to ring” for the complainant, and the 48-year-old was kicked out.

But they continued to talk, with Mr Gabb claiming Grant used “emotional blackmail” to try to “get back in there”.

He said he had a car crash in the New Forest and also offered to help her with jobs.

In an interview with the police days after the alleged rape, the complainant said that Grant had told her: “If you don’t want to be with me, I’m going to have to take what I want.”

She said: “He called me a whore and a tramp. It felt like it went on for ages but I don’t think it did.

“After that, obviously I was in a bit of shock.”

After leaving the house, Grant sent four text messages to the alleged victim, which Mr Gabb said it was the defendant knowing what he had done and covering his tracks.

Grant then went on the run, Mr Gabb said, and wasn’t tracked down by police until they found him in Oxford on Valentine’s Day this year.

In police interview, he said that any sexual activity was “entirely consensual”, Mr Gabb said, and his defence is consent.

The trial continues. Grant denies a single charge of rape.