Top Boy actor Micheal Ward has denied charges of rape and sexual assault as his trial opened at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Monday.
The 28-year-old, who rose to fame playing Jamie in the Netflix drama, faces two counts of rape, two counts of assault by penetration and one count of sexual assault. The charges relate to an alleged incident involving one woman in January 2023. Ward was arrested on 18 January that year and later charged in July 2025, appearing at Thames Magistrates’ Court on 28 August 2025 where he was granted conditional bail.
Prosecutor Tracy Ayling KC told jurors that Ward met the alleged victim for the first time at an “all-white party” at Infinity Lounge nightclub in Gants Hill, east London, on 1 January 2023. The woman, who knew Ward from television and film, was asked for his Snapchat handle, the court heard.
As revellers began to leave the event at around 2.20am on 2 January, the woman agreed to accompany Ward to the back of a friend’s Mercedes. Inside the car, the pair kissed on the lips and she consented to him touching her vagina, according to the prosecution. Ward then invited her to an afterparty in Stratford; she and two friends agreed to attend before driving back to Suffolk.
But the alleged victim told jurors she got a “weird vibe” at the afterparty, which was mostly attended by men, and the women left a short time later. Outside, she saw Ward and told him they were leaving because of the long drive home. He suggested she walk up to a car parked further along the road so he could talk to her again, the court heard.
The woman said she was given specific instructions to walk behind Ward and not to speak to anyone on the way. He got into the driver’s seat, she took the passenger side, and after kissing her he invited her into the back seat.
The alleged incident in the car
Once in the back of the vehicle, the woman said Ward became “quite impatient” and told her to “stop wasting time” after she initially agreed only to let him kiss her in the front. He then sexually assaulted her by kissing her breasts, she said, telling him: “I don’t wanna do that.”
Jurors heard that Ward went on to commit assault by penetration of her vagina and anus with his fingers. The woman said she felt “uncomfortable” and opened the car door, but Ward “quite sternly told her to close it”. In a police interview played to the court, she said: “I tried to leave the vehicle and he told me to close the door.”
She told officers she felt “numb” and “scared” during the alleged assaults, adding that she remembered “wanting it all to be over”. The prosecution alleges Ward then orally raped her while she felt “pressured”, before raping her in the car. According to the court, Ward told the woman: “When I tell you to suck my d***, what do you do?”
After the alleged assaults, the woman walked back to her friend’s car. Ward messaged her a “teary-eyed emoji and a heart emoji”, to which she replied telling him to “enjoy the rest of his evening”. On the journey home she experienced a “stinging pain in her vagina and bottom” and ordered an STI kit, ticking a box to indicate she had been sexually assaulted.
The prosecutor said the woman exchanged further messages with Ward “in friendly terms” because she “hadn’t fully come to terms with what had actually happened to her”. She did not make an immediate report to police, Ms Ayling told jurors, “because of who he is, she didn’t feel she could speak out”.
Ward, of Royal Crest Avenue, Silvertown, London, told police in a prepared statement: “I deny the allegation of rape. I want to put on record that we had consensual foreplay and consensual sex.”
Ward was awarded the Bafta Rising Star honour in 2020 and received Bafta nominations for best supporting actor for his roles in Small Axe: Lovers Rock (2021) and Empire of Light (2022). Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, he moved to Hackney at the age of four and attended Chadwell Heath Academy before studying performing arts at Epping Forest College. His breakthrough came in 2019 with the Netflix revival of Top Boy and the film Blue Story. He also appeared in Soccer Aid at Stamford Bridge in 2024 and gave a reading at the Christmas Eve carol service hosted by the Princess of Wales in 2023. His most recent film, Ari Aster’s Eddington, was released last August.
The trial continues. It is important to note that this case is unrelated to other legal matters involving different individuals named Michael Ward, including an arrest in Alabama for possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, and the retirement of a managing director at Raytheon Australia.
