Groping? I was asleep!
Millionaire’s defence after he’s accused of drunkenly stroking a woman’s bottom on the Tube
A MILLIONAIRE accused of drunkenly groping a woman on a Tube train yesterday told a court he was asleep at the time.
James Froomberg, 62, allegedly stood behind the woman on the packed carriage and stroked and squeezed her bottom.
He is said to have left the train after being told by another passenger that he was ‘disgusting’ and the woman’s boyfriend then gave chase and stopped him.
Froomberg is a former consultant for auditors KPMG who has also worked with the City of London police and served as a Government-appointed commissioner on the body regulating the National Lottery.
The Cambridge graduate claims he was asleep at the time of the alleged offence and was jolted awake at Mile End station on the Central Line, where he got off.
But the prosecution claim he was ‘standing up [and] his eyes were open’.
His alleged victim, who cannot be named, told the jury: ‘I felt that there was someone a bit too close to me, so I sort of moved over and I felt that there was someone touching me on my butt. I thought it might be someone’s bag so I tried to move and then I felt that someone was still touching me and it felt deliberate.
‘It was making me uncomfortable. It was sort of stroking me, just repeatedly running his hand over me.
‘I felt the hand squeeze me at one point. There wasn’t really much space to move because it was quite packed.’
Froomberg is accused of sexually assaulting the petite brunette during rush hour in the evening of May 1, after she got on the train at Holborn.
Her boyfriend told Blackfriars Crown Court: ‘I started saying it was not appropriate and things like that. I lost my temper, I am not proud of it.’
He described ‘ ushering’ Froomberg off the train at Mile End before following him and seeking the help of Transport for London staff. Mr Froomb- erg ‘walked away calmly’, however, and allegedly ignored demands to stop as he walked through a gate.
‘It was at that point that he bolted and tried to get out of the station. I caught up with him about ten yards to the right outside,’ the boyfriend added.
‘He was trying to push me out of the way. He didn’t swing at me but he was very intent on trying to get away.’ The boy- friend said he grabbed hold of the businessman’s sleeve and collar to stop him fleeing before British Transport Police arrived 15 minutes later.
Froomberg, who has a daughter, was a National Lottery Commissioner for five years from 2008, sitting on its audit and remuneration committees. He is also a former director of performance and innovation for City of London Police, once served on the government’s Casino Advisory Panel and was a director of corporate development at Wembley plc.
Terence Woods, prosecuting, said the woman and her boyfriend had been travelling across London on the Tube when they switched to the Central Line.
A number of people ‘noticed the defendant smelled of alcohol’, Mr Woods added.
Froomberg, of Edgware, north London, was arrested but declined to answer questions when interviewed at a police station.
He denies the charge, claiming he had been at the pub and slept on the train until he reached Mile End.
James McCrindell, defending, said: ‘You know how hard it is to get on a busy train without touching somebody.
‘You might think to yourself that may be what happened to Froomberg.’
His client might have been trying to ‘ catch on to something’ after having too much to drink, he added.
‘We cannot exclude the possibility of a mistake,’ Mr McCrindell said.
But Mr Wood added: ‘ This was not an act perpetrated by someone in their sleep.
‘He was standing up, his eyes were open.
‘It is unlikely that he was asleep on his feet and that he had fallen asleep in the very brief period he was on the train. The defendant deliberately touched her in a sexual way.’ The trial continues.
‘It was making me uncomfortable’