I had to tell SNP chief to behave as he tried to stroke woman’s face

‘It made me feel uncomfortable’

A SENIOR civil servant stopped Alex Salmond as he tried to stroke a woman’s face, telling him: ‘Stop that, behave yourself,’ a court heard yesterday.

The man was in a hotel lift with the woman – a civil servant known as Ms D – and Salmond, on their way down to dinner in 2011, when the then First Minister allegedly reached out towards her.

The male civil servant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said that he then told Salmond to ‘behave’ himself.

Gordon Jackson QC, representing Salmond, suggested his client had been in ‘danger of behaving inappropriately’, which the male civil servant said was a ‘fair description’.

The lawyer said Salmond was ‘doing that right in front of you’, adding that if he was behaving inappropriately, ‘he’s not doing it in a furtive corner’.

Earlier, Ms D had said she was ‘utterly aghast and shocked’ by the alleged incident in the lift.

She also told the court she felt ‘pretty humiliated’ by Salmond touching her bottom on other occasions.

The woman said that there were times when she walked with the politician.

Prosecutor Alex Prentice QC asked if anything happened that caused her some concern. She said: ‘Sometimes, not all the time.

‘Sometimes when walking with the First Minister he would offer me his arm and it was quite hard not to take it. From time to time he would encourage me to go in front of him.’

Ms D said that at times he would ‘place his hand on my back’, and place his hand ‘lower down on my bottom’.

She told the court: ‘It made me feel extremely uncomfortable.’

The woman said it had happened more than ten times.

She said that she had not encouraged or agreed to the former First Minister touching her bottom. She said he would also touch her hair, face and arm.

Mr Prentice asked if she put up with it and she replied: ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

When the prosecutor asked her why, she said: ‘He was the leader of the country. I really liked my job and valued my job.’

The woman said that she felt if she made a formal complaint it would be ‘my word against his and I was really concerned it would damage my career’.

She said she found the touching of her hair a ‘weird’ experience.

Ms D said: ‘If it [her hair] was straight, he would stroke it; if curly he would twirl it.’

On another occasion in 2011, Ms D fell asleep in a car with Salmond and claimed she woke up to find him stroking her cheek. She said she got ‘quite a fright’.

Mr Jackson put it to her that Salmond had done things which she felt were inappropriate, but they did not have an impact on the pair’s ‘general relationship’ which she had already described as ‘good’ overall.

Salmond is on trial over accusations of sexual assault, including an attempted rape, all of which he denies.