A married father-of-three said he panicked when police questioned him about an alleged rape.

Police called Khalid Mahmood in for interview in May 2011 following the incident in March of that year.

Mahmood told jurors at Bradford Crown Court: “I was scared because I knew that I had had sex with her, but I had not done anything wrong.

“But I was scared that people, especially my family, would find out that, one, I’d been drinking and, two, that I had sex with somebody else.”

He initially told police he had no recollection of any sexual incident involving him, but in a police interview in September 2011 he gave officers a prepared statement referring to an encounter in a public park.

The 31-year-old, of Gordon Street, Keighley, is on trial accused of raping a woman in Cliffe Castle Park in the town.

Mahmood yesterday told the court that he goes drinking in the park about once a fortnight because he does not know many people there and can drink away from his Muslim family.

He said he met the victim, a stranger to him, on March 21, 2011, in the street and the pair had started talking about how she had no money and her problems with the job centre.

They went to sit on a log in the park and started smoking and drinking vodka and shots.

Mahmood said he and the woman, who cannot be named, started kissing. He had undone her top, but stopped when she told him his hands were too cold, Mahmood said.

He said: “We had just been kissing and I thought that would carry on really.”

The defendant told the court that the pair had consensual sex on the ground a short time later.

He said she did not seem drunk, but later after she fell over three times, he called an ambulance because he was worried about her.

When paramedics arrived, Mahmood said he pointed them in the direction of the victim then left because he was worried his family would find out about the liaison.

“As soon as I saw they were with her, that was it. I left because I’m married. I didn’t want to be seen.

“I knew she would be safe, because the ambulance service was there,” he told jurors.

When asked by his barrister Kate Batty, if he actually left because he knew he had raped the woman, Mahmood replied, ‘no’.

The trial continues.