Word: This text incorporates descriptions of allegations of sexual assault.
Slowthai has been discovered not responsible in a rape trial introduced by two followers, BBC News studies. The British rapper and his buddy Alex Blake-Walker faced three joint counts of rape, alleged by two girls who instructed the court docket that the incident befell at one in all their properties, in Oxford, after a Slowthai live performance within the metropolis in 2021. Slowthai, whose authorized title is Tyron Kaymone Frampton, reportedly broke down in tears as the decision was learn. Blake-Walker was additionally cleared on the three joint rape counts, in addition to a fourth rely of sexual assault.
The prosecution lawyer, Heather Stangoe, had stated in opening statements that Slowthai and Blake-Walker first met the ladies earlier than a 2021 present in Oxford and gave them VIP tickets. After the live performance, the ladies, a few of their pals, and a bunch together with the 2 defendants went again to one of many girls’s properties for a celebration. As soon as there, in line with Stangoe, the ladies had been “remoted from their pals” by Slowthai and Blake-Walker.
The prosecution alleged that, on a balcony-style roof of the property, the boys made jokes whereas raping and sexually assaulting the ladies. (Slowthai and Blake-Walker denied the costs, saying all sexual exercise had been consensual.) They allegedly “high-fived, mentioned ‘tag groups,’ and contemplated swapping the women,” Strangoe instructed the court docket, in line with The Guardian. The second defendant instructed the court docket that Slowthai raped her twice with Blake-Walker’s encouragement. “I stated cease to him,” she instructed police in a video interview every week after the occasions. “Slowthai was attempting to drag my hair so I’d proceed. They had been saying: ‘No it’s secure we’ll take care of you, it’s secure with us.’ They had been saying: ‘It’s so nice, can’t consider that is taking place,’ and fist-bumping one another.”
She instructed police that Slowthai pushed her towards a wall after which to the ground earlier than raping her. Requested why she didn’t inform him to cease, she replied, “I felt helpless, like my physique was not my very own.” When the ladies’s pals realized what was taking place, Strangoe added, they instructed the boys to cease, at which level Frampton allegedly jumped down from the roof and ran away.
