Driving instructor Juma Kagwa, 47, denied on Thursday (October 13) that he made 'suggestive comments' to a 20-year-old woman pupil and touched her sexually during a two-hour lesson in Cheltenham.

The father of five has been accused by the woman of grabbing her hand and putting it on his crotch as she drove his Citroen C3 car. He is alleged to have told her 'You make me really hard.'

It is also alleged at Gloucester crown court that he rubbed his hand up and down her leg and thigh and stroked her back during the course of the lesson on August 15, 2021.

Mr Kagwa, of Horsefair Street, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham, has denied three charges of touching the woman sexually, all during the same driving lesson.

The jury at Gloucester Crown Court has heard that at one point during the lesson the woman sent a text to a friend saying she feared she was going to be raped.

In evidence today Mr Kagwa told the jury he was raised in Africa but had lived in Cheltenham since 2007 and is married with five children aged from 3 to 26.

He had given the woman 20 lessons at the time of the alleged offences and she was due to take her driving test within days of the date of the incident, he said.

"I have never been in any trouble whatsoever before," he said.

He had taught hundreds of young women to drive in the last three years as an instructor and had never had any other complaints or allegations made against him, he said.

He told the jury that on the day of the woman's allegations she was being difficult - shouting and yelling at him when he told her she might not be ready for her test that week.

She shouted that he had been overcharging her and at one point he got out of the car to calm down because of the stress she was causing him, he said.

When he got back into the car she apologised and told him that she was worried about her first ever date with a man later that day, he told the court.

When they set off again he touched her leg accidentally while the car was being reversed but not sexually and not in an intimate area, he added.

"She shouted at me 'You have touched me.'"

The jury has heard that at one point Mr Kagwa stopped the car to take his magnetic driving school sign off the roof. The prosecution suggest this was so that people would not notice the car or what he was doing inside it and would be unable to identify it.

But Mr Kagwa said the reason he took the sign off was because it rattled on higher speed roads and they were about to go onto an A road.

When they drove to the Crickley Hill country park, near Gloucester she had again been shouting at him and he opened the door and jumped out, again to calm himself down because of the way she had been behaving, he claimed.

The prosecution has alleged he went to the secluded beauty spot because he hoped to take advantage of her sexually there. It was from there that she sent the text to a friend saying she feared she would be raped.

When they set off again and reached the end of the lesson, he told her once more that he was not sure she was ready for the test or the way she was behaving, he added. She got out and slammed the door, he said.

Asked if he agreed with the prosecution's assertion that the woman was 'nervous, sensitive, quiet and respectful' by nature Mr Kagwa said her did not. He would describe her as a manipulative person who liked getting her own way, he said.

The trial continues.