A former bouncer allegedly raped a girl in a Harrogate flat after drugging her with the date-rape drug GHB, a court heard.

Paul Geagan, 58, from Harrogate, turned the teenage girl into a “floppy mess” after allegedly giving her a drink of orange juice laced with the intoxicant, a jury at York Crown Court was told.

He then raped her when she was so incapacitated she was “unable to speak or move or do anything to stop what happened”, said prosecutor Nick Adlington.

Opening the case for the prosecution on the first day of the trial today (March 17), Mr Adlington said the incident occurred in the late 1990s when Mr Geagan was working as a doorman in Harrogate.

The alleged victim finally reported the matter to police in March 2022, more than two decades after the alleged rape.

She told them that Mr Geagan had “offered her an orange juice” in the flat and the drink “made me a floppy mess in seconds”.

“Things started to go hazy,” she added.

“I was unable to speak or move or do anything to stop what happened next.”

Mr Adlington said the alleged victim believed that Mr Geagan had “drugged her orange juice with the date-rape drug GHB”.

'It seemed like hours'

He said that Mr Geagan then started to kiss the girl, before “ripping” her underwear off and raping her “for what, in her drugged state, seemed like hours”.

He said the alleged victim, who is now an adult, remembered the incident “in flashbacks” and recalled “an archway, a dark room, dark shadows”.

Mr Adlington said the alleged victim didn’t report the incident to police at the time because she was “convinced no-one would believe her”.

Mr Geagan, of Hampsthwaite Road, was quizzed by police in April 2022 but denied he was alone with the girl at the Harrogate flat. He denied drugging and raping her and said there was no sexual activity at all.

He was finally charged with rape in January last year but pleaded not guilty to the allegation.

The trial continues.