A TAXI driver accused of raping a dog walker in a popular park has insisted he was only going to the toilet.

Stephen Ord, 37, admitted he was close to the place where the 58-year-old woman was sexually assaulted in Calderstones Park at 8.30am on April 11.

But he insisted he had simply stopped to urinate after finishing a night-shift in his blue Hackney cab.

Giving evidence in his defence, the thin, long-haired cabbie said he had been disturbed by a dog barking and had jumped over the wall back to his vehicle. He was later identified by the woman’s daughter, who was sat outside in a car, who claimed his trousers were down. Minutes later, her mother emerged bleeding and crying from the park.

Liverpool Crown Court has heard the victim managed to bite her attacker as he forced her to give him oral sex.

Ord, of Acuba Road, Wavertree, was found to have a significant bruise following his arrest two days later.

He told jurors he was completely unaware of the injury, but said it must have been caused by itching and scratching.

During several hours of questioning, he admitted he had been interested in “rape and forced sex and submission” websites since June, 2008. He told jurors he had been told about the sites by two acquaintances who had acted for them.

Ord said: “They were all acted, they were adults. It wasn’t real and it was all fantasy.”