Second woman to claim Pippa’s father-in-law raped her is a ‘family friend’
A SECOND woman to accuse Pippa Middleton’s father-in-law of rape is believed to be a former family friend.
She reported her claims about David Matthews to South Yorkshire Police earlier this week.
Now thought to be in her 60s, the British woman is said to have accused the tycoon of assaulting her in Sheffield in the 1980s, when she would have been in her twenties or thirties.
It comes after multi-millionaire Mr Matthews, 74, was quizzed by French prosecutors over claims he raped a minor, which he strenuously denies.
He was arrested at a Paris airport last week and appeared in court after a woman, now aged 35, told police he carried out two offences between 1998 and 1999, when she was 15 and he in his fifties.
One was allegedly in Paris and the other on the Caribbean island of St Barts, where he and his wife Jane own a £5,000-a-night hotel.
Mr Matthews has vehemently denied the younger woman’s allegations, with friends suggesting he is the victim of a ‘revenge’ plot.
There was no immediate comment from him yesterday about the latest claims, published by The Sun newspaper. He has not been arrested or questioned.
The second woman came forward after the first woman’s claims surfaced last weekend.
She gave details to detectives in South Yorkshire, who must now assess the strength of her allegations before deciding whether to arrest Mr Matthews, interview him under caution, or drop the case. In the 1980s, when he allegedly forced her to have sex with him, she was believed to be a friend of the family. Sources close to Mr Matthews insist he has been ‘set up’ over the first allegation to humiliate him, nearly a year after his financier son James married Prince William’s sister-in-law Pippa Middleton. David Zara, who has known the former racer and property magnate for decades, said the rape allegations were completely out of character.
‘David is not that sort of person. He is certainly not a rapist and certainly not a child molester.’
He said the Me Too movement, established in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sex abuse scandal, had made it ‘hunting season on friend claims: sorry embarrassment.’ The powerful for first said set ‘It’s David. up woman, outrageous. of just people’. the He’s to first now cause being I woman’s Another living feel family completely very in Britain, last Mr Matthews year contacted and had initially acted French told inappropriately officers police She towards later told her when police she from was the 15. French Brigade for the Protection of Minors that she was raped.
She told officers she had initially blamed herself for the attacks, which left her feeling ‘shocked and disgusted’, saying: ‘Afterwards I felt like I was to blame. I developed feelings of self-loathing and I felt worthless.’
Last week Mr Matthews was held for 48 hours and questioned before appearing at the Palais de Justice, where he was charged with the ‘rape of a minor by a person with authority over his victim’, a crime that jail prosecutors His sentence carries official in a is status maximum France. ‘mis with en examen’, 15-year French which is widely considered to be similar to being charged in the UK, although there is no exact equivalent in the British legal system. He has since been released on bail and has been told he can leave the country, although he is expected to return to Paris as the investigation continues. Authorities have up to six months to decide whether he should stand trial or to drop the charges. French investigators said yesterday they were ‘being kept up to date with developments in Britain’ related to the Matthews case. A spokesman for Mr Matthews, who is represented by the Queen’s solicitors Farrer & Co, said: ‘David Matthews categorically denies the allegation and unequivocally contests the untrue and scandalous accusation.’
‘Afterwards I felt like I was to blame’