A construction worker has said he “just wanted to talk to” a woman that was walking alone down Old Town High Street, and denied sexually assaulting her.

Grzegorz Lukasz Bober is charged with two counts of sexual assault, relating to two separate incidents in Swindon last autumn.

Swindon Crown Court heard on Tuesday that in one of the incidents, Bober is said to have followed a lone woman from Newport Street to the Lloyds Bank on the High Street, before grabbing her arm, pushing her against a wall, and trying to kiss her whilst touching her bum.

But giving evidence on Wednesday morning, the second day of his trial, Bober said he “just wanted to talk” with the complainant.

Asked by his barrister, Nadia Chbat, what he was doing in the area, Mr Bober said from the witness box: “I was on the way back home from a party. I was walking along, killing time waiting for the shop to open.

“I saw this lady on the other side of the road and I just wanted to chat to her. I said my name is Grzegorz, nice to meet you. We didn’t really have a long conversation, because my English is limited,” he said via a Polish interpreter.

The court heard how the 35-year-old had picked up his pace to cross the road and talk to the complainant, who had been walking away from the Breeze petrol station having been to see whether it had any fuel amid the petrol shortage.

Asked whether he called her a “beautiful lady” by Ms Chbat, Bober said: “I might have, I don’t know. I do that sometimes.

“There is nothing wrong in telling another person they are beautiful, in paying a compliment.”

He said that he walked the woman to a gate before they went their separate ways. CCTV footage shown to the jury on Tuesday shown the pair in an exchange near the Goddard Arms, before he walked back the way he came around three minutes later.

It is during these three minutes that prosecutor Tim Akers claims Bober sexually assaulted the woman. But asked whether this happened by Ms Chbat, the defendant, of Milton Road, replied: “No, nothing of that sort happened.

“She just basically walked away, I turned around, we said see you, see you.”

The complainant went back to her boyfriend who reported it to the police, and Bober was arrested at around 7.40am.

In relation to a separate incident, alleged to have happened just a few weeks before, Bober, who has lived in Swindon for three years, said that he was walking near Cheekies nightclub where he saw two people between buildings.

“I saw her with a male I think, we looked at each other and she was trying to secure her space, I looked at her and I asked are you okay?

“She said she was okay, but at the same time she stepped away from the other person and we started walking together.”

Bober offered to book her a taxi, using money from his house, but when he got back to his, he discovered he had no cash.

Mr Akers claims this is when Bober assaulted this complainant, attempting to kiss and touch her.

“I said I’m really sorry, I can’t give you the money because I don’t have cash at home. She reacted a bit strangely, maybe she was upset or something,” Bober said of his version of events.

“She just left, and I did not follow her.”

Cross-examining the defendant, Mr Akers asked why his position had changed from police interview, where he claimed he said he had no “knowledge or involvement” of the allegation.

“I was all confused and I don’t know what I was asked to sign,” he said of a statement read to officers. “It’s not that I didn’t understand, it was such an intense time, maybe I signed something that I wasn’t quite sure what it was.”

But Mr Akers claimed that these incidents are a recurring pattern for Bober. “That’s what you do, you hit on women in Swindon town centre when you’ve had a drink.”

“I wouldn’t actually say that I hit on women, but I try to get contact, I do try to meet someone and the way to present it is that it’s not positive, it feels like people might see it as harassment or assault but for me it is trying to be positive and make friends.”

“[The complainants] might see it as assault,” Mr Akers concluded, “because that’s exactly what you did, you assaulted them didn’t you?”

“How can it be an assault when I didn’t do anything?” Bober firmly replied.

The trial continues. Bober denies two counts of sexual assault.