Salmond’s sloppy kisses on the lips disgusted me
■ Senior government official tells trial that ‘unpleasant’ incidents left her ‘humiliated’ ■ She tells court that ‘she didn’t know how to say no to the most powerful man in the country’
A SENIOR Scottish Government official yesterday accused Alex Salmond of giving her unwanted ‘sloppy’ kisses and groping her bottom.
The woman, known as Ms A, claimed the former First Minister had kissed her on the lips about ten times on different occasions when greeting her.
She claimed the kisses – which were ‘very sloppy’ and ‘very unpleasant’ – came while she worked with Salmond over a period of around a month.
And on three or four occasions over that time, in 2008, she alleged that he placed his hands on her bottom.
But she said she did not complain to anyone at the time, as she did not know ‘how to say no to the First Minister’, as he was the ‘most powerful man in the country’.
Salmond, 65, of Strichen, Aberdeenshire, is on trial at the High Court in Edinburgh over 14 alleged sexual offences, including attempted rape. He denies all charges.
Giving evidence on the third day of Salmond’s trial yesterday, Ms A said that if Salmond was in a ‘good mood, he would quite often come to greet me – very familiar – maybe giving me the impression he was going to give me a kiss on the cheek’.
But she added: ‘He would normally end up kissing me on the lips.’
Asked by advocate depute Alex Prentice, QC, if she had encouraged this, she said she had ‘absolutely not’ done so, as it had left her ‘quite humiliated’ and ‘disgusted’.
Appearing behind a screen, she said: ‘I came to expect something like that to
‘He would normally end up kissing me on the lips’
‘Put his hand on my back and... on my bum’
happen during my days with him during that time.
‘There was no need to be that physically close. There was no need to move his hand. There was no need for that to happen without him meaning to do it.’
She added: ‘At times he would move his hand on my back and move his hands so they were on the side of my chest or they were on my back.’
Ms A said this would sometimes happen at crowded events and he would ‘put his hand on my back and… down to be on my bum’.
Asked by Mr Prentice if she believed this was deliberate, she said: ‘I take the view it was deliberate.’
She said she had been around politicians and no others had acted towards her in the same way.
Ms A said: ‘It would not have been something he would have done by accident.’
Adding to her account, she said: ‘His hand started on my back and moved around. It would come around the side of my chest from behind.
‘I don’t know how you do that by accident.’
She said this kind of contact had happened four or five times.
Asked if she had wished for this to happen, Ms A said she had not encouraged it, adding that she had ‘absolutely not agreed’.
She said she began carrying a bag so it was between them when they were walking together and took the ‘first chance to step away to put some distance between us’.
Ms A said: ‘I did not know how to say no to the First Minister.’
She said she ‘liked [her] job’, adding: ‘I wanted to do my job well. He was the most powerful man in the country and I did not know what would happen if I said “no” or “get off ”.’
Ms A said she ‘had experienced some volatile mood swings’ from Salmond, adding: ‘It was almost easier to move away than risk infuriating or antagonising him.’
Ms A added: ‘I didn’t know what to do, I just wanted it not to happen.’
She claimed she began to take steps to avoid being with Salmond, but she did not tell anyone in 2008 because she said she found his alleged treatment of her ‘humiliating’ and she was ‘very embarrassed.’
Ms A said: ‘I did not want to turn around and say to people, “He’s doing this”.’
At a nightclub in Edinburgh, in 2010, where Salmond was present, Ms A, who said she was wearing a ‘quite tight’ dress, said Salmond put his hands on her shoulders and the side of her chest, telling her: ‘You look good, you’ve lost weight.’
She said she was ‘disgusted’ and ‘surprised’ and it had taken her back to the previous occasions when he had touched her. Ms A said: ‘It came out of nowhere.’
Ms A said: ‘I was a bit disturbed that he felt he could just do that – that that was something he felt he could do to me.’
Describing the incident further, she said Salmond ran his hands down to the curve of her back, ‘making an hour-glass shape’.
She said he was ‘quite firm’, adding: ‘The feeling of the touch is something that I can remember.’
Ms A said she did not know what to do and felt ‘internal shock’, adding: ‘I just remember wanting to get away from him and going to the bar to get myself a drink.’
In cross-examination, Gordon Jackson, QC, representing Salmond, put it to Ms A that in a police statement she had said Salmond kissed members of the public in the same way as she alleges he kissed her and that he was a ‘touchy feely’ person.
But Ms A said: ‘I don’t recall him holding members of the public by the shoulders.’
Mr Jackson suggested that the incidents she described were not ‘distressing in any way, shape or form’. He added: ‘It only turned into criminality because of embar
rassment and revisionism because other things have happened since.’ Ms A said that this was ‘categorically wrong’ and that she had been ‘humiliated’ and ‘ashamed’.
The court also heard about a meeting where Ms A was present, together with Nicola Sturgeon and Salmond in 2018, where Salmond was considering resignation from the party and wanted to speak to Miss Sturgeon about it.
Asked about the meeting, Ms A said she ‘suspected but did not know that it might be to do with complaints’, but she did not know the exact nature of those complaints until the meeting took place.
Mr Jackson asked why Ms A had not raised her concern about the allegations against Salmond after the Scottish Government set up new procedures for handling harassment complaints.
He said it was a ‘live issue’, adding: ‘You said nothing?’ She replied: ‘No, I didn’t.’ Ms A said she did not see how it would ‘make a difference’, adding: ‘I was content to not be part of it.’
Asked again why she would not ‘put her head above the parapet’, as other people were doing, Ms A said she was ‘not confident’, but added: ‘Mr Salmond sexually assaulted me – that is not nothing.’ She later told police about her allegations in a series of interviews.
Mr Jackson put it to her that, if Salmond had been acting ‘inappropriately’ and was a ‘bit too touchy’, then ‘other people would have seen it’.
Ms A said what had happened to her was ‘groping’. Mr Jackson said: ‘You call that groping?’ She replied: ‘Yes. He touched my breast, my waist, my hips.’
Asked why she had contacted other complainers in the case, she told the court she was concerned about their ‘welfare’ following a newspaper story.
Ms A said: ‘It’s quite a big deal if Alex Salmond is accused of sexually assaulting people in Bute House.’ She denied she was involved in encouraging people to contact police.
Mr Jackson said ‘trivial things’ turned into criminal charges after newspaper reports emerged that Salmond was being investigated.
But Ms A said: ‘I don’t decide what criminal charges are.’
The charges span a period between June 29, 2008, and November 11, 2014, with one sexual assault said to have taken place in the month of the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014.
Several charges involved the accused allegedly sexually assaulting women, including one alleged incident of attempted rape and another incident at a restaurant in Glasgow in March 2012.
Mr Jackson has lodged a special defence of alibi for an alleged incident in May 2014. Consent was also given as a defence for three alleged sexual assaults and an alleged indecent assault.
The trial continues today.