Mike Sinden, a former custody officer and father-of-two, has denied sexual assault by penetration.
Sinden told a jury they had been flirting and kissing earlier in the evening after drinking shots at a cocktail bar in Eastbourne on March 10, 2022.
Sussex Police custody inspector Sinden, 36, denied pinning the woman against a wall in an alleyway and sexually assaulting her.
Mr Sinden said they had kissed at a pub on two occasions on the night out.
Rachel Beckett for the Crown told him the kissing simply did not happen.
“Yes, it happened,” he said.
Rachel Beckett for the crown told them Mr Sinden pinned the woman to a wall in an alley near a cocktail bar.
Ms Beckett told him: “You walked her down a narrow entrance to the side street, a dark area, and you pulled her into that passageway and pushed her up against the wall and you tried to kiss her.
“She was moving away from you, turning her face, and she said no to you.”
In response, Sinden said: “It was one kiss and she didn’t say no.”
The woman said she told the inspector “no” as he sexually assaulted her.
Mr Sinden denied telling her: “You’re saying, no but I think you’re actually saying yes.”.
He said: “That conversation never took place.”
Sinden, 36, who worked as a custody suite manager for Sussex Police, also denied being about to take off his trousers after the woman pushed him away.
The court heard the woman told a friend the next day she had been sexually assaulted.
Following the incident, the woman told friends she wanted to go home.
Mr Sinden denied that the woman was upset.
Mr Sinden joined the police in 2009 as a PC, he was then arrested while on duty in a police custody suite on March 23, 2022.
In interview, he gave a prepared statement saying any sexual contact was consensual and answered no comment to all questions.
A jury in Hove were told the court was hearing the case for a second time after a first trial in 2023.
The trial at Lewes Crown Court in Hove continues.
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