Slowthai accused of raping woman after performance, court heard

Rapper Slowthai and a friend raped two women at a house party after one of his gigs in Oxford, the court heard today.

The 29-year-old, whose real name is Tyron Frampton, and his co-accused Alex Blake-Walker, 27, are accused of raping the women after his performance at The Bullingdon, in Oxford, on the evening of September 7, 2021.

Frampton appeared at Oxford Crown Court with his wife Anne-Marie. Both Frampton and Blake-Walker deny three joint charges of rape and one charge of sexual assault. BBC reports.

The court heard that one of the complainants, described as a “big fan” of the rapper, saw him at a restaurant before the gig and was added to the VIP list after a speech. Heather Stangoe, prosecuting, told the jury the pair had met a group of friends – including the other complainant – on the Frampton tour bus.

Stangoe told the court that the group returned to one of their homes, where the alleged attack took place. The jury was told Frampton insisted on two rules: “no phones and no boys.”

“Their sole purpose, the Crown says, when they went to that house was to secure sexual gratification,” Stangoe said.

“It didn’t matter to them whether the subjects of their attention consented or not. It happened that the two women in this case did not do that, but that made no difference to these two defendants.”

Once at the house, two women were ‘isolated’ from their friends, the jury was told.

Frampton and Blake-Walker then raped and sexually assaulted the women while “joking” and “high-fiving,” Stangoe said. She said the attack only ended after a friend of the women found out what was going on, and that Frampton then jumped off the balcony roof the group was on and ran out of the house.

Patrick Gibbs KC, defending Frampton, told the jury that Frampton “met his fans in the usual manner” after the performance. He said the evening’s events between his client and one of his complainants, while “quite unpleasant”, were consensual.

He asked the jury to “keep an open mind” during the trial. “What is in dispute is whether the women consented,” he said. According to Gibbs, the case was about “the difference between voluntarily agreeing to something that is thrilling and exciting at the time, and regretting it afterwards.”

He also said that regret and shame might cause someone to re-describe what happened. He said: “The celebrity effect can, and it will in due course be up to you to decide, whether people behave differently for all kinds of reasons when a figure from their screen steps off that screen.”

Sheryl Nwosu, representing Blake-Walker, said her client denied coercing any of the women into sexual activity. “All sexual contacts and acts were consensual,” she said The independent.

Slowthai was expelled from both the Reading & Leeds and Glastonbury line-ups charged at Oxfordshire Magistrates Court in May 2023. He was nominated for the Mercury Prize for his 2019 debut albumNothing great about Britain‘, with his second album ‘Tyron’ reaching number one upon its release in 2021. The artist’s last release was ‘UGLY‘, which came out in March.

The process continues.

For help, advice or more information about sexual harassment, assault and rape in the UK, please visit the website Charity website for the rape crisis. In the US, visit RAIN.