US airman on trial accused of raping teenager after smuggling her onto RAF base

A serving US airman has gone on trial at Northampton Crown Court accused of raping a teenager he met online after allegedly smuggling her onto the RAF base where he was stationed in the boot of his car, prosecutors told jurors.

Keharron Bogstad, 24, denies three counts of rape said to have taken place between November 2020 and February 2021. The prosecution says the woman, who was 18 at the time and cannot be identified for legal reasons, engaged in some consensual sexual activity with Bogstad but that there were specific episodes when she made clear she wanted him to stop and he carried on regardless.

Opening the case, Paul Jarvis KC told the jury that although the pair had a sexual relationship, the alleged victim — described by prosecutors as "young and naive" and sexually inexperienced — was sometimes frightened of having sex with Bogstad and acquiesced because she feared rejection. Jurors were told Bogstad, who was 19 at the time of the alleged offences and is still based at RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, favoured rough sexual practices that the woman said she did not enjoy.

Mr Jarvis said the prosecution’s case centres on three episodes in which the woman either verbally objected or attempted to resist and Bogstad persisted. The court heard an allegation that on one occasion Bogstad began strangling the woman until she passed out and then took a photograph of her, which he later showed her. In a police interview read to the court, the woman described trying to claw his hands off her and said her face went "reddish, purply, blue." The alleged attack is said to have occurred while they were alone on the RAF base.

The jury also heard that the woman provided Snapchat messages exchanged with Bogstad in which he wrote that he "could get her close to death" and that "blacking out is always an option," to which she replied "That's a no from me." In another message, he referred to being "definitely tempting" to push her sexually "just to do it and see your reaction afterwards," and she responded that she was the one "having it done to me," the prosecutor said.

Prosecutors acknowledged that many encounters between the pair were consensual, including some involving BDSM practices, but argued that in the specific episodes charged Bogstad would have had "no reasonable belief" that she was consenting. Mr Jarvis told jurors the fact Bogstad worked for the US Air Force and allegedly smuggled the woman onto the base in the boot of his car "no doubt added to the excitement of their relationship in her mind."

Bogstad, wearing a navy blue suit in the dock, maintains the encounters were consensual and that he always believed — "genuinely and reasonably" — that the woman was consenting, the court heard. He was arrested in May 2022 and interviewed by detectives, telling them the sexual activity had been rough but consensual and that he would stop if she wanted him to.

The matter was first reported to police in April 2022. The alleged offences are said to have occurred while Bogstad was stationed at RAF Croughton between late 2020 and early 2021. The woman later told police she had met Bogstad on a dating website in 2020 and that he was her first sexual partner, which, the prosecution says, contributed to her misreading of what was "normal" sexual behaviour.

Jurors were told the woman later realised, during conversations with a subsequent partner, that some of the activities had been without her consent. The prosecution says that common to the three charged episodes is the woman's clear objection, either through words or actions, and Bogstad's alleged continuation of the acts despite her distress.

The defence challenged that account at the hearing, and the trial, expected to last about a week, is continuing. No conviction has been recorded. The case continues to be heard at Northampton Crown Court.