Dorset Police officer accused of raping friend ‘became an animal’ | UK News

A police officer ‘positively revelled in the discomfort’ of a friend he is accused of raping, a court heard.

PC Ravi Canhye, 47, is on trial facing two charges of rape, one count of attempted rape, three charges of assault by penetration and one of sexual assault, all against one woman between April 8 and 11 last year.

He also faces a charge of sexual assault against a second woman on April 10 last year.

The officer for Dorset Police, from Poole, is alleged to have slapped and bitten the woman before pinning her down and raping her.

He is also accused of threatening to abuse her with his truncheon and a vodka bottle.

Sarah Jones KC told Winchester Crown Court, in Hampshire, that the alleged victim was a friend of Canhye’s.

But during the weekend in April the defendant ‘drank excessively’ and became a ‘completely’ different person.

He attacked his friend even though the pair had consensual sex the night before.

Ms Jones, prosecuting, told the court: ‘This case concerns a period of time when this defendant span out of control.

‘He has an issue with drinking and over this particular weekend he drank to excess.

‘The alcohol changed him or simply disinhibited him to reveal the true side of him.

‘He abused his friendship with one woman who had been nothing but kind and helpful to him.

‘He was so wrapped up in his own needs and desires he saw both her and her friend as objects to use and abuse as he wanted.

‘It brought him a sense of power or gratification and either he had no interest in what effect it had on these women, particularly his friend, or he positively revelled in seeing her disgust, her discomfort.

‘He thought he could treat them both as he wanted.’

The friend had at one point considered a romantic relationship with Canhye, but had ruled this out.

Ms Jones said: ‘She had been attracted to him before this weekend took place, she had thought about a romantic relationship with him because he was so polite all the time she had known him, so courteous, so empathetic to her feelings, she had thought there were no nice men in the world.’

But when she was attacked, the alleged victim said she had become frightened and obeyed his orders.

‘It came to a point where, she says, every time he was being too rough, when he was hurting her, that was exciting him and that made him worse at what he did,’ Ms Jones added.

‘She considered he was behaving like an animal and that she considered him to be behaving like an animal seemed to drive him on more.’

Canhye denies all the charges. The trial continues.

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