Hann denies telling student 'I hope you get pregnant'

Snooker star Quinten Hann told an Old Bailey jury today that he had spent the last 10 years of his life ‘‘trying not to get girls pregnant’’.

Hann was being cross-examined about the night he allegedly raped a student he had met at a London nightclub.

He has said that they had sex together briefly, but with her consent.

Hann denied he told the 21-year-old: ‘‘I hope you get pregnant. I want you to have my baby.’’

Hann told the court: ‘‘I could not afford it.’’

He agreed he had been prepared to risk not wearing a condom that night - but denied it was because he got carried away.

‘‘I think most guys do not like wearing them. More often than not I have not worn one. It is not smart, but there it is.’’

Miss Irene Ray-Crosby, prosecuting, told Hann: ‘‘I suggest you just got carried away with a combination of drink and what you interpreted as encouragement?’’

Hann replied ‘‘No.’’

‘‘You can get carried away when you are with a woman but this time it was not like that. It was not a very passionate night - just a lot of kissing. It was not fast paced,’’ Hann told the jury.

He said: ‘‘It started fine and it ended fine. I have been thinking about this for eight months and I do not know why she is lying or why she has done this.

‘‘I thought at the start to make money, but now I do not know.’’

Hann, 25, from Hyde Park, central London, denies raping the South African university student at a flat at the Savoy Apartments in The Strand where he lived in October last year.

Mfl