A MAN accused of strangling a charity worker bragged about allegedly raping another woman, a court has heard.A woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, described to the jury how Robert McCarry “slagged off” women to her before later trying to put his hands down her top and then up her trousers while she was asleep in a room with other people.

A MAN accused of strangling a charity worker bragged about allegedly raping another woman, a court has heard.

A woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, described to the jury how Robert McCarry “slagged off” women to her before later trying to put his hands down her top and then up her trousers while she was asleep in a room with other people.

Speaking from behind a screen at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday, she said: “He was talking about raping some girl once before and said she deserved it.”

Asked by prosecution counsel Karim Khalil, QC, if McCarry had said why she deserved it, she replied “no” and said she was “not 100 per cent certain” if he said he had also raped more women.

Cross-examining her Martyn Levett, for McCarry, said his client was dosed up on drink and narcotics at the time and suggested the woman would have understood these comments to be merely proclamations of “male bravado”.

He said if not she would not be so happy to sleep on the same sofa as him.

Four witnesses gave evidence on the fourth day of the trial of Robert McCarry and Paul Waters.

They included a woman who met McCarry through an internet dating agency in February 2006 and described how on one occasion during sexual intercourse he put both his hands round her throat and said she found it hard to get him off.

Another woman told the jury how in January McCarry and Waters drove her to the same Ipswich ski slope where Nicola West is alleged to have been murdered. She had wanted to go home after a trip to the supermarket with the defendants but said McCarry had told her they were at the ski slope to meet someone for a drugs deal.

She said McCarry got into the back seat with her.

“He climbed onto me and started kissing my neck and touching me. I told him to get off me and I pushed his hands away,” she said.

McCarry, 36, of Vernon Street, Ipswich, and Waters, 29, of Sandpiper Road, Ipswich, have denied murdering St Elizabeth Hospice distribution manager Nicola West in February.

McCarry has also denied two offences of raping Miss West, of Leather Bottle Hill, Little Blakenham, on February 8 while Waters has denied attempting to rape Miss West and aiding and abetting McCarry on one of the rape charges.

Both men have denied perverting the course of justice and McCarry has denied a further offence of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

It has been alleged that McCarry raped Miss West in a flat in Vernon Street after meeting her in a town centre pub and had then raped her again and strangled her after Waters drove them to an area near the dry ski slope at Wherstead. Waters is alleged to have attempted to rape Miss West in the car before her death.

The men are then alleged to have driven around for two days with 34-year-old Miss West's body in the back of the car before handing themselves in at Ipswich police station.

The trial continues.