A jury heard a woman’s evidence yesterday that she was sexually assaulted and pressured into producing a sex tape by a man she was in a “situationship” with.

While the victim said she felt degraded, she accepted in cross-examination that she continued her relationship with the man, recording videos for social media with him the following day.

The defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has denied two counts of sexual assault, along with unlawfully recording the victim and stealing her iPhone.

However, he pleaded guilty to a related count of unlawful assault that occurred on November 3, 2023.

The complainant, who also cannot be identified for legal reasons, said she met the defendant online through the social-media app Snapchat and the two started what she described as a “situationship”.

“We were friends that became more than friends, but a label was never put on the situation,” she explained.

She told the court that on October 2, 2023, she had gone to the residence where the defendant was staying, and where she was texting while they watched television.

The complainant said he snatched her phone from her and began to look through a conversation she had with another male.

“I wanted to purchase some shirts. I never received the shirts because the person left the island so that’s where the conversation had ended,” she said.

“However, [the defendant] didn’t want to believe that there was no sort of relationship between me and the person I was purchasing shirts from.”

She told the court the defendant became agitated and began to record her on his phone while insulting her.

“I was crying,” she said. “I was scared. I was begging and pleading him to stop.

“I tried to get my phone back from him and he would not give me my phone back, which led to him pushing me away.”

She said the defendant then told her that he wanted her to give him $2,500 or allow him to record him having sex with her.

The complainant said she would pay him the money, but he still demanded that they make a sex tape and she allowed it “against her will”, stating that she was “terrified”.

About a month later, on November 3, she told the court she was letting her former boyfriend out of the apartment building where she lived when she noticed the defendant outside on a motorcycle.

She said she went back into her apartment to get her keys and, looking out of the window, saw the defendant was off his bike and holding his phone as if recording something. She then noticed a series of missed calls from the defendant.

The complainant said she next answered a call from the defendant, who told her to come outside — which she did because she did not want him to find out where in the building she lived.

She said that the defendant confronted her outside, accusing her of cheating on him and slapping her in the face hard enough that she fell to the ground.

“He slammed me on the ground by my neck,” she said. “At this point I was screaming so he put his hands directly down on my face to stop me from screaming, which caused me to start bleeding from my gums because of how hard he was pushing on my face.”

The complainant told the court that the defendant eventually pulled her into the hall of her apartment building, pulled out a knife with an orange-and-grey handle and demanded that she unlock her phone.

She said that after looking at her phone he pulled her up and then forced his hand into her pants.

She said he eventually went to leave the property with her phone, and used the knife to keep her from retrieving it.

When he got on his bike, she gripped the brakes and members of the public started to watch the altercation.

The complainant said that in the midst of the struggle the defendant told her: “Look at what you have done. You have me on camera.”

She said that he eventually fled with her phone, so she went to her neighbour and called her mother.

Asked about the lingering impact, she said: “I think about it every day, about how degraded I was and how he broke me down as a person and the pain he caused me.”

Under cross-examination by Marc Daniels, for the defence, the complainant accepted that on the morning of the incident on October 2, she had allowed the defendant to record her performing a sexual act.

She also accepted that she continued to see the defendant regularly after the incident and recorded videos for social media the following day.

The complainant also agreed that after the incident the defendant had introduced her to his family as his girlfriend and the pair had professed love for each other.

Asked about the November 3 incident, she accepted that she told police the man she had let out of her apartment that day was her boyfriend, not her former boyfriend, and that she had not informed the defendant that she was seeing someone else.

The trial continues.

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