A taxi driver jointly accused of raping a teenager broke down as a lawyer suggested he had “taken advantage” of the woman.

Stuart Milne, 37, was giving evidence at Carlisle Crown Court, where he and Terry Parry, 30, who both live at separate addresses in Bow Fell Road, Whitehaven, both deny raping the 18-year-old woman in the town's St Nicholas Gardens.

Milne also denies a further sexual assault.

With the prosecution evidence completed, Milne began his evidence, describing how on June 29 last year he and Parry started chatting to the woman outside Wetherspoons pub after she asked for a cigarette.

Milne said they had got on to talking about her boyfriend.

“She said that her boyfriend won't have sex with her,” he said.

“I asked her if she wanted a drink and she said yes.”

Responding to her comment about her boyfriend, said Milne, both he and Parry were asking why, and “what was wrong” with the boyfriend.

They then walked to another bar called Sneck Lifter.

She also joined them at another nearby bar, called Sydney's, where he drank from a jug of vodka and Red Bull, and she was also drinking, he said.

“We were flirting, and talking, and having a laugh,” Milne told the jury.

After leaving there, they walked through Whitehaven, he with his arm around her shoulder.

“We were going for a stroll,” he said.

They walked into Church Street.

“I asked her if she wanted to go somewhere quiet and she said yes,” said Milne.

“We went to St Nicholas Park.”

As they crossed the road, he said she grabbed his hand.

The defendant then described going with her through an archway into the gardens next to the ruined church.

He said she then undressed and told him to have sex with her.

Thinking she was “up for it,” he did. He told the court that as they were having sex, his co-defendant appeared through the archway and she asked him if he also wanted sex.

At first he refused, but then he did have sexual contact with her, he said. Milne insisted the woman never gave the impression she did not want sex.

He said he stopped when he realised she had a phone in her hand.

Afterwards, he told the court, he was concerned about her but he thought she was acting weirdly.

Barrister Andrew Ford, for the prosecution, asked: “Did you think she was vulnerable?”

Milne replied: “No.”

Having established that the defendant had bought the woman drinks, Mr Ford asked: “Did you ever think 'This is a kid'. Did you think that?”

Milne replied: “I did at first, yes.”

Mr Ford said: “Do you think, Mr Milne, that you took advantage of her?”

The defendant, breaking down, said: “No. “I have got two daughters. I would never take advantage of anyone.”

The trial continues.