Salmond claims rape accuser agreed to sex
ALEX Salmond told a jury he had a “consensual sexual liaison” with a woman who alleges he tried to rape her.
The former first minister of Scotland, who began giving evidence at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday, denies 13 offences against nine women.
An ex-Scottish government official, known as Woman H, had told the court she felt hunted by Salmond moments before an alleged attempted rape at his then official residence, Bute House, Edinburgh, in June 2014.
She said she had been sexually assaulted by him a month before when he kissed her face and neck and touched her legs.
Salmond said no incidents took place during those months but there had been a sexual
Henry Vaughan
encounter the previous year following a dinner and he said one thing led to another on the complainer’s initiative.
Questioned by his lawyer Gordon Jackson QC, he said: “There was a consensual sexual liaison. Neither party were naked but in a state of partial undress.” Salmond added: “It was just two old friends and things had gone too far.”
He was questioned about an allegation that he had assaulted another woman in his bedroom at Bute House in late 2013.
Salmond said he and a Scottish government official, Woman F, “collapsed into a sleepy cuddle” on a bed after drinking spirits. Salmond said: “I apologised. We were tipsy, it shouldn’t have happened.” Asked if he had intended to rape her, Salmond said: “I have never attempted a non-consensual sexual relationship with anyone during my entire life.”
Another senior Scottish government official, known as Woman A, said he sexually assaulted her in Glasgow between June and July 2008.
Exaggerated
But Salmond, 65, said: “These are all public places. It would be insane to do anything like that.” He also denied running his hands down her body at an Edinburgh nightclub in December 2010.
Salmond said: “Events are being reinterpreted and exaggerated out of all proportion.
Some, not all, are fabrications, deliberate fabrications for a political purpose.”
He said a civil servant, known as Woman B, had “misremembered” an incident where she accused him of grabbing her and trying to kiss her in Bute House in 2010.
He said: “It was a joke, was high jinks.”
Salmond denied claims there was a policy that prevented him being alone with female civil servants at Bute House.
He faces accusations of sexual assault, including an attempted rape, between June 2008 and November 2014.
Consent was given as a defence for three alleged assaults and an alleged indecent assault against three women. The trial continues. it