Bafta-winning Top Boy actor Micheal Ward, 28, is on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court accused of raping and sexually assaulting a woman in the back of a car in east London on New Year's Day 2023. The case matters because Ward is a prominent British screen actor, and the jury has now reached the closing stages of the trial, with prosecutors summing up their argument that he ignored whether the woman was consenting.

Ward, of Silvertown in London, denies two counts of rape, two counts of assault by penetration and one count of sexual assault. Prosecutors allege the assaults took place in a friend's cramped A-Class Mercedes after Ward hosted an "all white" clothing party at a club in Gants Hill and the pair attended an after-party. In her closing speech, Taylor Ayling KC told jurors Ward was "intent on his own pleasure, come what may", was controlling and thoughtless of the woman's feelings, and interested only in his own gratification, while the alleged victim felt "pressured". Ward, who rose to fame playing Jamie in Netflix's revival of Top Boy, denies all the charges.