A British Airways flight attendant pleasured himself as he sexually assaulted a female colleague following a boozy night out in Rio, a court has heard.  

Ryan Lim, 30, is accused of assaulting the woman after an evening of drinking shots with the plane's captain.

Lim, of Sunderland, is said to have told colleagues the morning after: 'What happened in my room stays in my room.' 

Giving evidence from behind a screen, the woman told jurors at Isleworth Crown Court how she woke up in the hotel room disorientated and 'in a state of panic'. 

She said: 'I didn't get myself here on my own, I came around quickly, I was in a state of panic because I didn't know where I was.'

The attendant was in the same bed with Lim and another male colleague after she had to be 'carried' back from the nightclub, the court heard.

She told how she felt 'the sensation of my bum being rubbed in a circular motion' by Lim before she 'jumped' out of bed to be sick in the bathroom.

Earlier she told police: 'The next thing I remember is waking up to the sound of sexual moaning. I realised I was in a hotel room but I didn't know if it was my room.

'I looked ahead and saw a folding door mirror. I saw what seemed to be Ryan masturbating, I saw his hands moving up and down.

'I was not sure what I heard and saw was real [and] I pretended to snore and sleep again. I then felt Ryan's hand on my bum cheeks.'

She reported the incident to police when the crew landed at Heathrow several days later, after being advised to do so by British Airways bosses.

Defence counsel Sophie Kerridge told the woman: 'This is a night where you had gone out, you got very drunk.

'You woke up in a room with two boys, you were coming in and out of sleep when you noticed something that could be sexual activity.

'At the time you were not sure what you had experienced was something more innocent.

'I suggest to you it didn't happen because you would have been in a rush to leave that room.'

The attendant replied: 'I don't think it is fair for you to tell me that when everyone reacts to trauma differently.

'I didn't know if this could be classed as sexual assault, I didn't know if what I experienced could be reported.

'I was in shock and I didn't know what to do.'

Lim appeared in court yesterday wearing a white shirt and black tie, at one point pressing his ear against the glass to take notes as his family observed from the public gallery.

The woman had asked the second male colleague if she was 'dreaming' when she recalled Lim masturbating.

The colleague told the court: 'Towards the end of the day she asked me if she was dreaming and if she imagined Ryan w***ing over her in bed.

'I was shocked, I just kind of said: "What?"' 

But he said he 'did not know' why Lim stayed in his room after they carried the woman back, or how they all ended up in the same bed.

He said: 'When I woke up I was confused anyway, but I just remember [the woman] half on the floor and half on the bed.

'I just leaned over to grab her arm and realised Ryan was in the middle of us.'

Lim, of Sunderland, denied one count of sexual assault on November 9, 2024.

The trial continues.