A woman was left shocked and stunned after former Blue Peter presenter John Leslie made a “solid grab” of her breasts at a Christmas party, a court has heard.
The pair had just shaken hands when the star grabbed both of her breasts and laughed, his sex assault trial was told.
The woman, who cannot be identified, had recognised Leslie at the gathering in London’s West End more than a decade ago, and had just introduced herself before he groped her, she told Southwark Crown Court.
She told the jury: “I put out my hand to shake his hand to say ‘hello… nice to meet you’.
“He shook my hand and was smiling and then immediately thereafter he grabbed both of my breasts, one hand on each breast, quite firmly, and laughed.
“It was very confident, I would say. I was very shocked. It wasn’t a kind of quick grab. It was a solid grab and then after a period of a couple of seconds, I think he let go and was laughing.
“I was a bit stunned. I didn’t say anything, I was a bit annoyed, I was shocked I think. He just sort of laughed and walked off to the bar and that was it.”
Demonstrating the alleged incident to the jury with her hands out and making a grabbing motion, she said it was not “accidental”, adding: “It was an ‘I’m going to grab your breasts’.”
The woman told a friend after the alleged incident, recalling saying to one of them: “Oh my gosh, this just happened, John Leslie just groped me.”
Leslie, 55, denies sexual assault by intentionally touching the woman without her consent on December 5 2008.
A new jury was sworn in on Tuesday and the trial opened afresh, after the original jury was discharged on Monday because one juror was “unable to carry on”.
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