I froze as he put hand on my leg, SNP politician tells court
AN SNP politician yesterday told a court Alex Salmond sexually assaulted her during a journey in his ministerial car – while her partner was in the front passenger seat.
The complainer, known as Ms C, said the incident occurred in February 2011, when the former First Minister had offered to give her a lift to Edinburgh Waverley Station.
Ms C told the trial she had been ‘gobsmacked’ when he put his hand on her leg for part of the journey – which left her feeling ‘surreally awful’.
The alleged incident came after a ‘convivial’ evening at an Edinburgh restaurant, with Salmond saying he would give the pair a lift in his government car.
Ms C said she had never been in a government car before and thought it would be ‘cool’ to travel with him.
She claimed Salmond suggested she sit in the back seat with him, while her partner – an admirer of Salmond – got in the front seat.
Appearing behind a grey screen, the complainer said: ‘At some point in the journey, Mr Salmond put his left hand onto my leg just above my knee. It wasn’t a kind of quick touch – maybe you’re chatting and the hand goes out and comes back – he had his hand there and it stayed there for the duration of the journey until I got out at Waverley.’
She insisted she had not invited or encouraged this, adding: ‘I was just absolutely gobsmacked. I hoped that it would just go away.’
Ms C said it had lasted for a ‘large proportion’ of the journey.
When asked by advocate depute Alex Prentice, QC, why she had not called to the driver for help, she said: ‘I was in shock. I thought it was so surreally awful that I didn’t know whether to say anything.
‘I was just really embarrassed that it happened. I just kind of presumed that it would stop.’
She said at the end of the journey, goodbyes were said – but she did not tell her partner. Ms C said her partner was ‘on great form and really chuffed to be in a car with Alex Salmond, who [they] really looked up to and admired’.
She told the court her way of dealing with it had been to ‘blank it out’ because she regarded it as a ‘ludicrous thing’.
Ms C said: ‘I suppose when you look back at things you realise how much you excuse a person because of who they are. It’s so hard to explain how much he means or meant to our party. It’s because of who he is and what he was – who on earth was I going to tell?’
Shelagh McCall, QC, representing Salmond, said the former SNP leader had denied ever touching the complainer’s leg, which Ms C said was not true.
She added: ‘I absolutely wish that was the case because then I would not have to be here today.’
Under cross-examination, Ms C said she ‘just froze’ during the alleged incident, adding: ‘I just put it to one side and I just never mentioned it.’
She later received an unsolicited email from the police about the experience.
Ms C agreed she had been part of a WhatsApp group which included some of the other people who had made allegations against Salmond.
But she insisted that she did not feel under any ‘pressure’ to complain to police.
She agreed with Mrs McCall that she was ‘quite shy’ and she had not been part of Salmond’s ‘inner circle’, adding: ‘I never sought to be and was never invited.’
Salmond faces 14 charges of alleged offences against ten women and has pleaded not guilty to all of them.
The charges span a period between June 2008 and November 2014, with one sexual assault said to have taken place during the month of the independence referendum in September 2014.
The trial, before judge Lady Dorrian, continues today.
‘Because of who he is...who on earth was I going to tell?