SPEEDWAY star Darcy Ward did “a runner” after a teenage girl was sexually assaulted in a Poole hotel room, jurors heard yesterday.

The 20-year-old Pirates rider from Poole Road, Sturminster Marshall, was one of three males allegedly involved in an incident, filmed on a mobile phone, at the Premier Inn in Holes Bay Road.

Australian-born Ward, twice world under-21 champion and three times Australian under-21 champion, denies sexual assault on August 17 last year.

A 17-year-old male, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies rape and three sexual assaults while a third man, said to be at the scene at the time of the alleged crimes, was not charged.

During a pre-recorded interview on August 18, a friend of the alleged victim recalled how they had travelled from the Midlands to watch Poole Pirates.

She said her 17-year-old companion had drunk two small bottles of cider, a can of cider and a pint of vodka and lemonade as well as a shot before the alleged attack.

After the speedway meeting the group went back to the hotel where the girls had booked a room, the court heard.

Referring to the state of her friend, she said: “She appeared drunk – she was stumbling and fell off the end of the bed. She was talking rubbish.”

The teenager said she had left the room and gone into a corridor, adding: “I thought she would go to sleep and they would leave.”

She said Ward had been with her in the hallway before he went back into the room, adding: “Then they just ran past me – that made me suspicious.

“They looked like kids who had stolen sweets from a shop, doing a runner.

“I thought they had got some guilty pleasure from doing something to the room.”

When the teenager returned to the room she said she had found her friend “crying her eyes out,” adding: “I didn’t get any sense out of her; her knickers were on the floor and when I noticed blood on the bed I booked a taxi straight away to get her to hospital.

“My initial thought was has someone forced themselves on her?”

The case continues.