text: Rape: Edwin 'Jock' Mee is accused of attacking several Army cadets while working as a recruitment sergeant . An Army recruiting sergeant raped a teenage cadet after telling her he could help her get a visa from the Home Office, a court heard today. Edwin 'Jock' Mee allegedly told the 18-year-old, from Sierra Leone, that her visa application had been delayed in order to persuade her to have sex with him. He is accused of carrying out sex attacks on 11 victims as young as 15 while working at an Army careers centre in Croydon, south London, between October 2010 and September 2011. One woman told Southwark Crown Court today that she saw Mee, 46, as a father figure after he helped her join the Army. She said: 'He was like someone I could really lean on because, going for some interviews with him, he would ask me everything about my personal life, everything, because he said that is the procedure they need to do. 'So it is like I took him as a father, or someone I can relate to, or maybe understand what is happening to me.' Jurors heard that Mee repeatedly asked the teenager if she wanted to have sex with him - she initially ignored him, but later explicitly told him she did not want to do. The court heard that one occasion when she went to see Mee, he slapped her bottom as she left the office, and she told him 'never do that'. Prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC asked the woman why she did not tell any of the other recruiters what was going on. The witness replied: 'He always told me not to say anything to anyone because no one will believe me and looking at him, and his status, all these things, I believed him.' Describing the alleged rape, the woman said she had gone in for her final Army selection interview in August 2011 before the conclusion of the process. Around the same time she was trying to renew her visa with the Home Office, and was not aware of any problems with the application before she went to see Mee. She said: 'He said there was a delay for me to pay the money, that if the visa didn't come, I can't go for selection and my date was already fixed. He told me he can help me. 'He told me that because I need to go to selection and my passport was with the Home Office, and he told me that he was going to help and I said, "How are you going to do that?" He just said, "A call that I can make," and I said "Why don't you do it?" 'He said: "You know what you can do that will make me do it."' Base: Mee was working at an Army careers centre in Croydon, south London, pictured . The court heard that Mee then told the woman to wait for the 'boss' who was going to conduct her interview. But he returned a short time later, told her that he would now be talking to her and took her to the kitchen area, jurors were told. Dressed in his Army uniform, Mee allegedly spoke to the woman about her selection procedure and the fact her passport was with the Home Office, before leaving her waiting alone again. The woman said: 'He came back and sat, he started asking me if I was going to have sex with him.' Jurors heard that she told Mee 'no' and that she was simply there to see the 'boss', still believing that there were other people in the recruitment office. When he asked her for sex again he allegedly said that no one would ever know, and later revealed that there was nobody left in the office. The woman told the court that Mee then 'jumped' and kissed her on the lips, before asking her to lift up her skirt and show him her underwear. He then pounced on the woman and began assaulting her, before she told him that she could not breathe. 'I was suffocating because he was on top of me,' the woman said. 'And I told him that I was suffocating, he got scared a bit and that is when he jumped off me, because I wasn't breathing.' After the incident Mee drove the woman home, telling her not to tell anyone what had happened, and said that he was helping her out, the court heard. The woman said she kept quiet about what happened because he was 'a big person in the Army' and she did not think anyone would believe her. Jurors heard that soon afterwards, the alleged victim received a letter from the Home Office saying her visa had been granted, and she thought Mee had been responsible for this. Sergeant: Mee denies assaulting the women between 2010 and 2011 . Mee, who now lives in Scotland, denies 17 counts of sexual assault, three rapes and one count of assault by penetration. Jurors also heard that the woman kept a diary in which she wrote entries about her daily life. Writing about the day she was allegedly raped, she said: 'Jock also got a message from the Home Office that they are not going to grant me the extension because I was late to pay the money. 'Jock had to beg for me and he also sent them a letter to appeal on my behalf. I am so thankful to God that Jock helped me out in that. He has always been there for me, if they don't agree he said he will marry me. LOL. 'That is so sweet of him. God, please don't let anything happen to me.' In cross-examination Lisa Wilding QC asked the woman if Mee had offered to marry her 'jokingly or seriously'. 'That is why I put LOL because that is what I thought, because he is telling me all these things that I wasn't aware of,' she replied. In another entry a few days later, she thanked the sergeant for helping her with her application to remain in the UK. She wrote: 'I also thank Jock for making that call to the Home Office. He helped me a lot. If he didn't call, they should have refused me.' Asked why she hadn't told anyone of the rape, the woman explained that she was like an abused child. She said: 'He is just like a father who is abusing a child and the child doesn't know that you are abusing it, and you are torn between love and hate. That is how I felt.' The trial continues. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.
target: Edwin 'Jock' Mee allegedly told 18-year-old she had visa problems .
  He told her he could make a call and help her stay in Britain, court hears .
  Sergeant then allegedly attacked the teenager and nearly suffocated her .
  Mee, 46, denies carrying out a string of rapes and sexual assaults .