Boxing champion Scott Fitzgerald has appeared before Preston Crown Court accused of rape

Boxing champ Scott Fitzgerald appeared before a judge in Preston today accused of raping a young mother in the bathroom of her home while her children slept just feet away.

The 32-year-old was said to have forced himself on the woman after a night of drinking, ignoring her desperate pleas to stop.

Fitzgerald, a former British title-holder and Commonwealth gold medal winner, pleaded not guilty to the charge which resulted from an early morning incident in the city’s Ashton area almost four years ago.

Prosecution barrister Richard Haworth told the jury the boxer had been socialising with friends throughout the night and had taken advantage of the woman after they were left alone together for a short time.

He was alleged to have asked her for sex while they were in the kitchen and exposed himself to her. He then followed her when she went upstairs to use the toilet.

Mr Haworth claimed Fitzgerald had exposed himself again in the bathroom and then pushed her over the sink and then the bath, pulling down her tights and raping her while he held on to her hair at the back.

“She was begging him to stop,” he said. “She was certainly upset. She felt scared. It (sexual intercourse) certainly was not in her mind.”

Mr Haworth said the woman had later told police that as soon as she managed to push him away, Fitzgerald had said: “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” He followed her downstairs and continued to apologise for what he had done.

Before he left the house he is alleged to have warned her that if she said anything about what had happened “no-one would believe her because it was her word against his.”

When Fitzgerald was later arrested he told police the woman had consented to sex and that, in fact, she had been the one who had “made all the running.”

(Proceeding)