Music boss who ‘looked like Shrek’ is cleared of sex attack

A FORMER music executive accused of sexually assaulting a woman who said he looked like Shrek was cleared yesterday.

Dave Pollard, 56, was accused of attacking the 43-year-old at her flat after a night of drinking. But the married man, pictured, who used to run Universal Music’s video tape facility The Engine Room in Kensington, London, on a consultancy basis, said it was consensual – and a jury unanimously agreed.

Their verdict came after the woman told the court she agreed to let Pollard stay over, assuming he would sleep on the sofa. She said: ‘I see him as a safer, older man. He’s hideous to look at, there’s no sexual attraction.’ She added that he was ‘massive, like a beast, like Shrek’, likening him to the ogre from the animated film.

The trial heard the woman drank around six glasses of wine at a local pub on January 14, and took another bottle home to share with Pollard. She claimed she was woken at 6.20am by him assaulting her. But Pollard, of Dorking in Surrey, told the court the brand designer allowed him to massage her feet, sat on his lap and instigated sexual activity.

He was cleared of one count of assault at Isleworth Crown Court. Universal Music said Pollard stopped working at The Engine Room last year.