Claims that a high rise resident intimately touched a woman after she stuffed his hand down her leggings was yesterday branded “absolute nonsense”.

Prosecutor Nicholas Tucker spent 40 minutes grilling Dean Clark, who is currently on trial at Swindon Crown Court accused of five counts of sexual assault by touching.

It is alleged the 33-year-old left his David Murray John Tower flat on the evening of July 3, 2018, after spotting a woman on the top floor of the Brunel West Car Park.

The woman, who was struggling with her mental health, had gone to the car park at around 7.20pm – according to CCTV footage. She said Clark approached her, initially asking if she had seen a man trying car doors before telling her she was pretty. He is accused of assaulting her five times in the car park, also exposing himself to her.

Put on the witness stand yesterday, Clark told jurors he had left his flat a little after 8pm in order to go to Morrisons and Tesco to buy chicken slices and steak crisps for his wife. He was on Jobseeker’s Allowance at the time and had planned to compare the prices of the items at the two shops.

He said he had walked out of the DMJ Tower and turned right onto Canal Walk. He would have crossed the path at McDonald’s and walk across Wharf Green and down Commercial Road to reach the Morrisons supermarket.

However, he claimed he had seen the back of an old friend, who he knew only as Martin, with whom he had attended Lackham agricultural college in the mid-2000s.

He caught up with him in the underpass. Martin, who had a rucksack slung over his shoulder and was carrying a brown bag, invited Clark to join him as he ate some takeaway food on the top floor of the car park. Clark walked on to the stairwell on the Farnsby Street side of the multi-storey, while his friend walked up the ramp inside the car park.

Martin finished his food and, as he was leaving, a woman arrived on the car park’s top floor. She said something, Clark told jurors. When she got closer he could see she was upset. She said she was depressed and wanted some fun, took his hand and placed it on her bottom. He walked off but she grabbed his hand again and forced it down her leggings, he claimed.

He walked fast down the stairs, but she rushed past him. She stopped at the bottom of the stairwell and said something, which he did not hear. Clark told jurors he had not reported the encounter. “Most of the time guys call the police on this sort of thing they get...the usual brush off.”

But prosecutor Nicholas Tucker dismissed the man’s story, saying his explanation was absolute nonsense.

He accused the defendant of seeing the woman from his flat. “You identified her as an evidently vulnerable girl and that’s why you left your flat to go and see what advantage you could take from her, didn’t you?” The defendant denied it.

Asked why Martin wasn’t picked up on CCTV entering or leaving the car park, Clark suggested he could have left on a motorbike or in a car. He had tried to trace Martin on Facebook without success and had not seen him in the two years since he was arrested.

Mr Tucker asked: “Does Martin even exist?” “Yes, he does,” the defendant replied.

He told police he’d spent 30 seconds speaking to Martin on the ground floor of the car park, while CCTV footage showed he’d walked the length of the underpass in just 19 seconds. Mr Tucker told Clark: “It would have to be a really short conversation as you were walking, wouldn’t it. ‘Hi Martin, bye Martin.’ There was no conversation with Martin in the underpass, was there.” Clark maintained there was.

Clark was asked if it had struck him as odd Martin was eating his food on the roof. It had not, he told jurors. “Now, I wish I’d just said ‘see you later’.”

The trial continues.