Volunteer officer met alleged rape victim while posing as girl, 16, court told

A volunteer Metropolitan Police officer accused of raping a woman was posing online as a 16-year-old girl when the pair began talking, a court has heard.

Amersham Law Courts heard that James Bubb, who now identifies as a woman named Gwyn Samuels, allegedly raped the woman he was in an on-off relationship with between January 2018 and February 2023.

On Monday, the trial heard the pair met on the online chat site Omegle while Bubb was posing as a teenage girl and that they had spoken about a sexual practice known as BDSM (bondage, discipline/domination, sadism/submission, and masochism).

Jurors previously heard the woman had told police Bubb went on to use “BDSM and kink as a way of creating control” throughout their relationship.

The complainant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court on Monday: “When I met James on Omegle, I didn’t know that it was James at first, they introduced themselves as a teenage girl so I was more concerned than anything else, and then kind of just talking to them about maybe this isn’t what they should want to look at at their age.”

She said: “As I said, James first presented themselves as a 16-year-old girl.”

Jurors previously heard the pair started talking when the complainant had “just turned 18” and that she had been “terrified” after Bubb had suggested “knife-play” during their relationship.

In her police interview, she said: “When a guy is trailing a knife down you telling you the things he could do with it and you are terrified and you don’t trust he would stop – the safe word means nothing.”

During cross-examination, Adrian Amer, defending Bubb, asked: “All the BDSM you had with James was completely consensual wasn’t it?”

“No,” the alleged victim replied.

Mr Amer continued: “Did you introduce knife-play?”

“I did not introduce knife-play,” the woman said.

Mr Amer asked: “In your knife-play, sometimes you were blindfolded weren’t you?”

“Yes,” the witness said.

“And James would use a blunt butter knife to run along your body, a blunt butter knife that’s correct, isn’t it?” Mr Amer asked.

“I have no way of knowing if it was a blunt butter knife, I was blindfolded,” the alleged victim said.

Asked to describe the knife that Bubb would use during times where the alleged victim was not blindfolded, she said it was a “large-ish knife” like the type “used to cut vegetables”.

Regarding the size of the knife, the woman indicated it was shorter than the length of an A4 piece of paper.

The 27-year-old has denied one count of rape in relation to the complainant, and two counts of rape, two counts of sexual activity with a child, one count of assault of a child under 13 by penetration, one count of rape of a child under 13 and one count of assault by penetration in relation to another complainant.

A not guilty verdict on one of the rape charges in relation to the second complainant was returned on Wednesday after the prosecution offered no evidence.

All charges are alleged to have taken place between January 1 2018 and April 2 2024.

The defendant, of High Street, Chesham, Buckinghamshire, denies all charges.

The trial continues.