A smoker has denied groping a woman who he met when they were both having a cigarette in a street.

Jason Parsons allegedly intercepted the young mother as she returned to her home in Dawlish and sexually assaulted her twice.

He put his hand down her trousers as they stood together in a hallway and he then went inside her flat where he repeated the assault, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Parsons, aged 36, of Tillhouse Road, Cranbrook, denies two counts of assault by penetration. He told police the woman tried to kiss him, he resisted her advances and there was no further sexual contact.

Miss Virginia Cornwall, prosecuting, said the woman lived in Dawlish at the time and used to smoke in the street outside her flat.

Parsons met her when he went to smoke in the same area and had started showing a sexual interest in the woman for some time before the incident in November 2014.

She said: ‘The woman never had a relationship with him but we say he became interested in her sexually and perhaps with his inhibitions loosened by alcohol, he sexually assaulted her on this night.

‘It did not happen with her consent and his attentions were unwanted. She was a private lady who kept herself to herself. She did not have a great deal of self confidence because her marriage had broken down and her husband had left her.

‘She was perhaps isolated and somewhat vulnerable. We suggest he knew something of her circumstances and took advantage of that.’

Miss Cornwall said Parsons had joined the woman and a friend on a number of occasions when they had been smoking together and had made sexual comments which made it clear he had an interest in her and which made her feel uncomfortable.

She said the woman told a friend and her former husband on the night of the alleged assault but only felt able to report it to the police about three weeks later.

Parsons denied any form of sexual touching when interviewed by police. He said the woman had shown an interest in him but he had not reciprocated because he is married with two young children.

The trial continues.