‘Zombie’ Salmond moved in for kisses, sex trial told
ALEX SALMOND pretended to be a zombie as he tried to kiss a party worker, his sex assault trial heard yesterday.
Another woman said Scotland’s ex-first minister, 65, “forcibly” grabbed her bottom as they posed for a photoshoot.
Salmond is accused of 14 sex assault incidents, including attempted rape, between June 2008 and November 2014. He denies all the charges.
One accuser, Woman J, said she was at his official Edinburgh residence Bute House, in September 2014, the month of the Scottish independence referendum, and found him lying on the floor.
She told the High Court in Edinburgh she “froze”, then Salmond told her to “come here and work” on documents he had.Woman J said she lay some distance from him and Salmond told her to stand up and asked if she had seen “that zombie film where they do this?”.
She said: “He just took a couple of steps with his arms outstretched. He puts his arms on my shoulders and leaned in to kiss me on my cheek and then proceeded to move my shoulders to kiss my other cheek and then leaned in to kiss my lips.”
Woman J said she broke free and Salmond acted like “nothing had happened”.
Shelagh McCall QC, for Salmond, said to her: “He says it never happened.”
Woman J replied: “It did. I was in complete shock, I didn’t really understand what was happening.” When asked how she felt the next morning, she said: “Like I had had an awful nightmare.”
The woman said she was “dumbfounded” when she discovered more complaints had been made about Salmond.
Later, Woman J said the pair went into Salmond’s study but she said the room was cold.
Power
She said Salmond told her: “Well you shouldn’t have bare legs.” She replied she was wearing tights and said Salmond touched her leg above her knee before making a remark about her face and touching her nose.
A former civil servant, Woman K, said earlier that Salmond grabbed her buttocks during a photoshoot at Stirling Castle in 2014. She said: “I think my heart stopped, my adrenaline started pumping a bit. It made me just mortified.
“I just wanted to do my job, I wanted to be proud of myself... and it felt like I was demeaned, that it was unprofessional, that there was nothing I could do about it.”
Defence advocate Gordon Jackson QC put it to Woman K that the incident had been about power rather than sex, which she had said in a police interview.
He asked: “You said...that the First Minister grabbed your bottom because he could. It wasn’t about sex, it was about power – that was your take on it?” Woman K replied: “Yes.” The trial continues.