Drunk footballers ‘took pictures of sexual assault’

FOUR drunken footballers accused of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old allegedly took photographs of themselves during the incident, a court heard today.

A jury at London’s Old Bailey heard how a group of Brighton & Hove Albion footballers sought to make a “permanent record of their conquest”.

It is alleged that four Brighton & Hove Albion players - Anton Rodgers, 19, Lewis Dunk, 21, and George Barker, 21, and former team-mate Steve Cook, 21, who has since moved to Bournemouth - took a young woman back to their hotel after celebrating a victory in the Sussex Senior Cup and assaulted her, taking photos while doing so.

The quartet deny charges of sexual assault and voyeurism.

The incident is alleged to have taken place in July 2011 at the Jury’s Inn Hotel in Brighton.

Richard Barton, prosecuting, said: “This case concerns how a group of young professional footballers, intoxicated after a night out together celebrating a cup final victory, took advantage of a young woman, who herself was intoxicated and who was obviously in a vulnerable condition.

“After taking her back to a hotel room, they waited until she had fallen asleep, and so was unable to resist, and then sexually assaulted her in a deliberately humiliating way.

“They compounded the humiliation by taking photographs of themselves doing so in order to have a permanent record of their conquest.”

The court also heard that the teenager did not tell police for six months “through fear of repercussions”, and only did so after being “repeatedly taunted” about the incident by another footballer at the club.

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers, the father of co-accused Anton Rodgers, was present in the public gallery.

The trial continues.