Closing speeches are being delivered today in the trial of former teacher Daniel Gravell, who is accused of multiple rapes. Prosecution barrister Matthew Cobbe and defence counsel Julia Flanagan are addressing the jury of 11 at Swansea Crown Court.
Allegations spanning two decades
Gravell is alleged to have raped a teenager at his home in 2001, raped a second teenager outside a rugby club in 2005, and raped a third woman in a hotel bedroom in 2011. The defendant denies all the allegations.
The prosecution case is that the 2001 allegation involves a woman Gravell met on a night out in Carmarthen town centre in the summer of that year. The pair are said to have gone back to the defendant's house in nearby Johnston, where they engaged in consensual kissing before the woman said she was on her period. The prosecution say Gravell then "yanked out" the woman's tampon and raped her.
The second alleged rape is said to have happened in Carmarthen town centre in the summer of 2005, after Gravell met a teenager outside the Rose and Crown pub on Lammas Street and took her down an alley to the clubhouse of Carmarthen Athletic rugby club, where he attacked her.
The prosecution say the third rape happened in 2011 and involved a woman the defendant had met on Facebook. It is alleged that when the pair met, the defendant drove her to the Baltic Inn hotel in Pontyates, where he was working at the time, and raped her in a bedroom.
Defendant's account
Gravell, 45, of Porth-y-Plas, Johnstown, Carmarthen, denies all the allegations, saying the 2001 incident "simply never happened" and that the 2005 and 2011 incidents were consensual sexual acts.
The court has previously heard Gravell, who grew up in Carmarthen, tell the jury he probably had a reputation around the town for "sleeping with a lot of girls". After university, Gravell worked as a teacher in Swansea until 2016 and subsequently took over the lease on the Baltic Inn hotel in Pontyates.
The court has also heard that in 2016 the defendant was found not guilty of rape. Gravell has told the court he had "naively" thought he would be able to get back to teaching and to a normal life, but said things were "horrendous", with messages posted about him online, his car vandalised, death threats made, and "Dan G rapist" sprayed around Carmarthen.
Previous convictions
The jury has been told that in 2025 Gravell was convicted of raping a woman at a house in Carmarthen, and that a jury was unable to reach a verdict on a second count of rape against a different woman. On Wednesday, Gravell told the court that while he accepted he was convicted, he would "never accept" he was guilty of rape and insisted the sex on that occasion had also been consensual.
One juror was discharged early in the case due to ill health, leaving a jury of 11 to hear the closing speeches.
