Sheffield mental health worker '˜sexually assaulted girl, 16, after locking her in his bedroom'

The girl, who was living in a children’s home and is one of three alleged victims of 50-year-old Owen Smith, was found by police in the defendant’s flat in Sheffield city centre after going missing in September 2014.

She told a jury at Sheffield Crown Court Smith had ‘guided’ her with his hand on her back from the front door of his flat straight into the bedroom.

The teenager, who is now 17, said that later in the evening he had given her an unknown substance to smoke that had made her feel ‘so tired I wanted to lay down and go to sleep.’ She said Smith had then locked the bedroom door and intimately touched her despite her attempting to prevent him doing so by moving her body away from him and trying to take his hand off her body. She said: “I didn’t agree to it. I didn’t say ‘No’ and I didn’t say ‘Yes’ – I was too scared.”

Francis Edusei, representing Smith, suggested the complainant had instigated sexual contact with his client and the contact between them was ‘something you consented to’.

The alleged victim said this was not the case.

She said she had first met Smith when she had been walking down a road in Sheffield and he had pulled up his car to the pavement where she was standing.

Smith, of Hawley Street, Sheffield city centre, denies five counts of rape, two counts of trafficking and two charges of sexual assault.