Rape suspect 'would have fled' if guilty

A suspected serial rapist told a court today that if he was guilty he would have fled the country when police asked him for a DNA sample.

Giving evidence for a third day at Maidstone Crown Court, Antoni Imiela said he had £4,000 cash and could have gone to stay with relatives in Germany after he was contacted by officers on November 18, 2002.

"If I'd done the bloody thing I would have p****d off out of the country. I would have caught a ferry."

Imiela also said that if he had committed the rapes he would have used a condom from the beginning to avoid leaving evidence.

"I think if I was the bloke who would be capable of doing that, unless something was mentally wrong or deficient, I'd say I was smart enough to use a condom.

"What would I want to rape a 10-year-old girl for?"

The 49-year-old, from Appledore, near Ashford in Kent, denies raping eight women and girls aged between 10 and 52 in the South East.

He also denies kidnapping, indecently assaulting, and attempting to rape a 10-year-old girl in Birmingham.

All the offences are alleged to have taken place between November 2001 and November 2002.

Imiela was arrested after his DNA sample was found to match DNA taken from a 10-year-old girl who was raped in Ashford.

Asked by Mark Dennis QC, prosecuting, about an attack on another 10-year-old girl in Birmingham, which happened two days after the defendant's DNA was taken for testing, Imiela said he had been in the area at the time because he had decided to take a day off work.

The defendant told the court he had picked up two "non-Muslim Kurds" who were hitchhiking at a service station on the M25, and agreed to take them to Manchester.

He said he intended to visit a former boyfriend called Steve, who lived near Manchester, who he had not seen since 1987.

However, there was no answer at the address and instead Imiela went on to Birmingham for "no particular reason", the court heard.

Mr Dennis said: "That's your story, isn't it? You have absolutely no support for it at all."

The defendant replied: "None."