Submariner accused of raping colleague at Faslane

A female submariner has accused a colleague of raping her after a party at Faslane naval base in Scotland.

The 36-year-old woman was seen repeatedly falling down drunk and collapsing onto a pool table and a sofa on the night of the alleged offence.

After three hours of drinking wine and port at a celebration party on board a nuclear submarine, she said she “needed help to leave”.

“I remember falling into a radiator and getting stuck,” she told Livingston High Court.

“I was pulled out from being wedged into the radiator.

“I was very, very drunk. It was a conscious effort to climb up the ladder.”

She said the drinking session continued in a mess bar until the early hours of the next morning with her downing alcoholic ginger beer, Amaretto and gin.

The jury was shown CCTV footage showing her repeatedly falling to the floor and needing help to get up from a sofa.

She said she eventually went back to her cabin in an accommodation block on the base at Gare Loch, Argyll and Bute, where she and colleagues, including her alleged attacker, continued to party.

She said she came round later to find herself alone, so she went to bed and fell asleep immediately.

She said: “Next thing I remember is someone being on top of me and someone’s face.

“I was very confused. I felt a beard on my face so I knew it was a man. I didn’t know who.

“I know that he was on top of me and trying to kiss me.”

The woman described being raped and being unable to push him off because she was so drunk.

She told the jury that Petty Officer Jake Wilson was the person who attacked her.

Wilson, 38, from Gosport, Hampshire, is charged with raping the woman on May 11, 2023 and sexually assaulting a second submariner on various occasions between October 1, 2021 and November 3, 2022.

He denies the charges and has lodged a special defence that both complainers consented to sexual activity.

It has been agreed that it was he who had sexual contact with the women.

The trial, before temporary judge John Morris continues.