A woman who says she was sexually assaulted by the father of former Manchester United footballers Gary and Phil Neville has denied his celebrity status.
The alleged victim said Neville Neville, 63, drunkenly forced himself upon her after she gave him a lift home following a night out in his home town of Bury, Greater Manchester.
A jury at Bolton Crown Court has heard that Mr Neville claims the encounter was consensual after they shared a "passionate" kiss as he went to leave her car.
The incident took place in the early hours of March 23 when the middle-aged woman offered Mr Neville a lift because of the snowy weather.
Giving evidence, the woman, who is a Manchester United supporter, said she knew the defendant but not on a personal level.
Orlando Pownall QC, cross-examining, suggested to her that, like it or not, his client was "a bit of a celebrity in the area".
"His children are well-known and as a result he is well-known," he said to her.
She replied: "He is not a celebrity.
"I just said he is an upstanding member of the community because of what he had done for Bury Football Club. He saved Bury Football Club. That to me was good."
She said she agreed that what happened was unexpected and that neither had been flirtatious beforehand.
Mr Pownall said: "Mr Neville does not have a reputation for lunging at women, does he?"
The witness said: "Neither did Stuart Hall."
The barrister said as she had mentioned Hall, he noted that not one person had come forward to make a similar complaint as a result of the publicity of his client's arrest.
"Do you blame them? Look at this," she said, gesturing around the courtroom.
"Look at what am I going through. People are frightened, I am so frightened. I am telling the truth."
Mr Neville denies sexual assault.
The trial continues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article