A cab passenger has told a jury that he did not touch a woman who has accused him of groping after they climbed out of a taxi.
Jamie O'Loughlin said he had no sexual interest in the hen night party goer and had not even held hands with her when they shared a taxi home in Tiverton.
He said he walked straight home after dropping her off and was shocked to learn of her allegations and initially thought they were directed at the wrong person.
O'Loughlin, aged 43, of Coleridge Road, Tiverton, denies sexually assaulting the woman in October last year.
The woman has told Exeter Crown Court she shared a taxi home after meeting O'Loughlin outside the Half Moon in Tiverton where she had been at a hen night and he had been drinking with friends.
She said he grabbed her hands as they shared the back seat and tried to force them into her lap and then groped her and pinned her against a wall after they got out, telling her he wasn't going to go until he had touched her."
Father-of-six O'Loughlin said he and a friend were getting into the cab in the centre of Tiverton when the woman approached them and asked to share it.
He agreed after she told him she lived near to his house and they dropped the other passenger off before both getting out and walking away in opposite directions after he paid the fare.
He said:"I did not try to put her hands on my lap in the taxi. That is not true. I didn't even hold hands with her.
"We stopped and I paid the taxi and I walked home. It took less than a minute. I did not assault her sexually in any. It did not happen. Nothing happened. There was no sexual contact between us that night.
"I was not interested in her sexually. I was gobsmacked when the police told me about her allegations. I could not believe it."
O'Loughlin said he received a Facebook message on the night of the alleged attack from the woman's boyfriend which asked 'did you enjoy groping her and pushing her up against a fence?'.
He said his partner found it on his phone the next morning and showed it to him but he thought it must have been sent to the wrong person.
Under cross-examination by prosecuting counsel Miss Bathsheba Cassel he denied being so drunk on the night in question that he could not remember what he had done.
