MP’s aide ‘raped girl in his office after night out’

A YOUNG woman ran crying through the corridors of Westminster after she was raped by an MP’s chief of staff, a jury heard yesterday.

Samuel Armstrong, 24, allegedly pounced on the woman as she lay sleeping on a sofa in his office after a “very jolly, very playful” night out drinking at Parliament’s Sports and Social Club.

“The next thing I remember was him with his hand on my left breast, and him kissing my mouth and my neck,” she told police in an hour-long video interview played to the jury.

The aide, who worked for South Thanet Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay, repeatedly begged the alleged victim to come back to his flat and called her a “bitch” when she refused, the court heard. She tried to push him off but he pulled off her clothes and raped her, said Mark Heywood, QC, prosecuting. “She said to him, ‘What are you doing?,’” Mr Heywood told the jury.

“His answer speaks volumes: ‘This is what you want!’” He allegedly raped the woman a second time before she dressed and fled.

She found a cleaner in the corridor of the Norman Shaw building – opposite Big Ben – who called police in October last year, London’s Southwark Crown Court heard. The victim admitted suffering from depression and anxiety at the time.

Sarah Forshaw, QC, defending, said: “It wasn’t until after you and he had had consensual sex, you found you couldn’t find your way out of the House of Commons, that’s what happened. You had a sort of panic attack, anxiety and you couldn’t find your way out?” The woman denied it, saying: “I was crying because a man had forced himself upon me.”

Armstrong, of Danbury, Essex, denies rape and sexual assault charges. In a statement to police he said: “Any contact was at all times consensual.” Trial continues.