A STUDENT at the University of Wales, Newport, accused of abducting, binding and raping a woman in his car told a jury it was she who tied him up.

Vibinmon Joseph, 25, of Commercial Road, Newport told a jury he was wasn't going to have sex with the woman until their marriage which he said was planned for 2013 in India.

Joseph, is on trial at St Albans Crown Court accused of kidnapping, rape, assault by penetration, false imprisonment, four offences of sexual assault, two offences of common assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He denies the charges.

The jury heard Joseph became obsessed with the alleged victim, a 26-year-old Indian student living in Luton, after meeting her last October when she came to the UK to study.

Joseph, through a foreign student placement agency, had the job of meeting her on arrival at Heathrow Airport and taking her to her student accommodation in Luton.

Joseph is accused of sex attacks in December 2011 and January 2012.

At the end of January, he is accused of forcing her to get into a hire car in St Albans where he produced a gold chain used to symbolise marriage in India and hung it around her neck telling her she was now his wife.

He said to have driven the woman to the car park of a Sainsbury's store where he beat her, bound and stripped her naked, before raping her.

He said the woman agreed to meet him, adding: "It had been her idea for me to buy a pendant. It was a symbol that we would treat each other as man and wife."

He said she removed her own clothing and went on "She asked me to bind her with sellotape."

Joseph said she bound him with tape and had his hands bound behind his back.

He said she stuffed a towel in his mouth so that he felt like he was suffocating.

"She closed my nose and said 'This is not our first night, this is our last night," he said. Jurors heard he managed to push her away and get free.

He denied raping her and said full sex had not taken place between them.

Proceeding