Powerboat tycoon ‘in sex attack outside exclusive yacht club’
A MILLIONAIRE property investor ‘lunged at and groped’ a stranger during an evening at a world-famous yacht club, a court heard yesterday.
Peter Bonham Christie is accused of sexually assaulting a 27- year- old woman at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge.
An accomplished sailor, the 39-year-old once broke the offshore powerboat world speed record and represented Great Britain in sailing until 2010.
London’s Isleworth Crown Court heard how the businessman, who also runs a classic and luxury car company, grabbed the woman between her legs outside the members-only venue.
He is said to have carried out the alleged assault in front of other shocked members after an evening dining at auctioneers Bonhams and the five- star hotel Claridge’s in Mayfair.
When he was arrested, Bonham Christie denied touching the woman but admitted he had been drinking.
Prosecutor Emma Smith said he had followed the woman and club member Andrew Sutherland, 60, as they went outside to
‘He lunged at her and groped her’
smoke after Mr Sutherland accused him of taking cocaine.
The alleged victim had earlier arrived with her boyfriend but he left and it was the first time she had been introduced to Bonham Christie.
Miss Smith said Bonham Christie ‘put his hand between her legs and grabbed her crotch’. She added: ‘She did not say anything because she was so shocked, but pushed him off and said, “What are you doing?”
‘The defendant apologised to Mr Sutherland, but not to her and went back into the club.’ Bonham Christie telephoned Mr Sutherland the next day, the court heard.
He told him: ‘You have to get me out of a hole’ and asked for the woman’s phone number, but Mr Sutherland declined.
Following the alleged attack on November 30, 2018, the woman reported the incident to the club and later went to police in March 2019.
During his police interview, Bonham Christie said Mr Sutherland was very drunk and had accused him of taking cocaine.
He said he went outside for ‘a word’ and they had a ‘friendly argument’ before he went back into the Royal Thames which, founded in 1775, is the oldest yacht club in the world. Bonham Christie is the scion of a wealthy family that formerly owned the exclusive Brownsea Island off the coast of Dorset.
Educated at £40,000-a-year Millfield School, he made his first million selling office water coolers that used water from his family’s property.
He set the British speed record on Coniston Water, alongside his girlfriend, Mel Hatton, in 2012. He denies sexual assault. The trial continues.