A football club manager sexually assaulted a woman who was giving him a massage, thrusting his exposed penis into her hand, unzipping her tunic and demanding to see her breasts, a court heard on Monday.

James Rowe, 41, who was sacked as manager of “high-flying” Chesterfield Football Club following the accusations, has now gone on trial.

The married father-of-two from Breaston, Derbyshire, initially booked a back massage but changed it to a groin massage once he was in a beauty salon room with the 41-year-old self-employed therapist.

In video evidence given to Derby Crown Court, the alleged victim sobbed: “I was scared of being raped. I was terrified and shocked.”

During the appointment on November 24, 2021, Rowe allegedly kept slapping his penis against the woman’s hand and grabbing her to make her touch it, prosecutor Gurdial Singh told Derby Crown Court.

Rowe also told the massage therapist, who was wearing leggings, underwear and a navy tunic which he had tried to fully unzip: “Go on, let me just see your t---. You’ve got massive t---!”

Rowe, who was freed on bail following his arrest, has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual assault.

The defendant, dressed in a suit and sitting in the glass-backed dock, looked and listened intently to video evidence given by his alleged victim.

She has previously given an interview to police which formed part of the prosecution opening.

Rowe’s wife and other family members were sitting in the public gallery.

Evidence from the complainant, now aged 43 and who cannot be named for legal reasons, was in the form of a police interview given in January 2022, two months after the alleged assault.

The jury of six men and six women heard how naked Rowe threw aside a towel protecting his modesty and suddenly asked for a groin massage instead of an intended back one.

The therapist, working in a private room, told how he kept slapping his exposed and aroused penis against her hand.

She said: “He also put my hand on his penis at least three times, and my fingers touched it but I pulled away. I told him to ‘put that away’.”

She added in her evidence before His Honour Judge Jonathan Bennett: “He kept saying, ‘I don’t need anything from you, you need something from me!’

“He kept saying, ‘Go on, no one will know, no one will hear.’”

The woman wept, saying: “I was scared of being raped. I was terrified and shocked. He’s not a nice person.”

She told how although Rowe did not say so, it was clear “he wanted sex”. He kept trying to touch the inside of her thigh but she said: “No. This is not happening. I am being professional.

“You are not calling the shots! This is [a] massage room, you have come to me.”

The alleged victim further told how Rowe tried to pull down the side zip of her tunic.

She said: “He was saying, ‘Go on, let me see your t---. You’ve got massive t---!’ I was wearing a bra and he could see my breasts but I zipped my tunic up.”

She made him put on his boxer shorts but she claimed he started “playing with his penis in his pants”.

The woman insisted she was “not consenting in any way” to his alleged behaviour.

She insisted: “I said ‘no’. I made it perfectly clear.

“Whilst he didn’t say ‘come and have sex with me’, he tried it on and he tried to groom me into the situation. It was clear what he wanted and he was trying to get me to pleasure him.”

The massage therapist also revealed that her client had hoped she would give him oral sex, saying: “He wanted me to sit on a stool at the height of his penis for obvious reasons.”

He then kept putting his hand on the inside of her leg, she kept removing it and putting it back on the bed.

She told how she got “very upset” and “so shaken” and asked the football manager to leave the room but, to be professional, she invited him back later to complete a back massage he had originally booked.

During text messages which the football coach and therapist had exchanged to set up the massage, Rowe allegedly asked her what she would be wearing.

When she explained she would be in a uniform, he asked about her underwear, saying “Frenches or a thong?” She ignored the text.

Rowe later made her delete all the text messages they had exchanged while he was sitting on the massage bed.

He then got up and left, telling her: “You’ve passed the test.”

The therapist later broke down as she confided in a friend about her ordeal. She described Rowe as a “very controlling, nasty and horrible person”.

When police launched an investigation in January 2022, Rowe was temporarily suspended from his managerial role at National League team Chesterfield FC, leaving by “mutual consent” the following month.

When the alleged sexual assault took place, the club was “high-flying” and on the brink of promotion, the prosecutor said.

Rowe was then appointed manager of AFC Fylde in March 2022 but left when he was charged by Derbyshire Police in September that year.

The trial continues.