Hearing paints Bryant as callous rapist

PROSECUTORS wasted no time painting a picture of American basketball icon Kobe Bryant as a callous rapist who wouldn’t take no for an answer, while defence attorneys showed they would spare no one, even the alleged victim, to keep the NBA star from prison.

Mr Bryant sat stone-faced during a preliminary hearing in Colorado as the woman's story of a flirtatious encounter gone bad came out for the first time, with graphic details of Mr Bryant grabbing her by the neck, bending her over a chair and attacking her at the exclusive mountain resort where she worked.

"You're not going to tell anybody about this, right?" he allegedly asked the woman repeatedly during five minutes of sex.