HE GRABBED MY WRISTS... I FELT LIKE I WAS WRESTLING AN OCTOPUS
Civil servant tells trial how Salmond tried to recreate pose from ‘sexualised’ Vettriano work
‘He pulled me towards him and I was just shocked’ ‘You would not relax in his company’
A CIVIL servant yesterday accused Alex Salmond of grabbing her wrists and trying to kiss her as she ‘wrestled’ him like an ‘octopus’.
She said the ex-First Minister had been attempting to recreate a pose from a ‘sexualised’ painting that was being considered for an official Christmas card.
The Jack Vettriano image showed a man about to kiss a ‘scantily clad’ woman under mistletoe. The civil servant, known as Ms B, said she was ‘shocked’ when ‘persistent’ Salmond took hold of her wrists at Bute House in Edinburgh.
Salmond is on trial over 13 alleged sexual offences involving nine women, including attempted rape. He denies all of the allegations.
The 65-year-old was formally acquitted of a charge of sexual assault yesterday after the Crown reduced the total number of charges from 14, against ten women.
Giving evidence on the sixth day of the trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, Ms B said the Vettriano image had been discussed for use on a card in 2010. She objected, claiming that it was inappropriate as it showed two individuals – a man and a dark-haired woman who was ‘scantily clad’. The jury was shown the picture – a painting called Ae Fond Kiss.
Ms B said it was ‘not an appropriate image for the First Minister and his wife to send out’, as it was ‘too sexualised’.
It was around 8pm when Ms B and Salmond were left alone in the drawing room of Bute House, and she was getting together her documents to leave. She was talking to him about ‘policy issues’ when she said the then First Minister told her: ‘Come here, let’s recreate the pose on the Christmas card.’
Ms B told the court: ‘He grabbed my wrists and he pulled me towards him, and I was just shocked.’
She said she tried to free her wrists but did not succeed.
Ms B said: ‘I felt like every time I managed to get a hand off, another hand would appear. He was very persistent – I felt like I was wrestling an octopus.
‘There was always another hand coming to my wrist. This felt like it went on forever, but I suspect it was seconds or minutes.
‘I did not speak, it felt like my voice had gone... He was trying to kiss me; I did not want that to happen. He was leaning towards me, trying to pull me into him.’ Ms B said she ‘knew that it was a sexual approach’ because Salmond had allegedly told her he wanted to recreate the pose in the picture.
She said she was ‘alarmed’, adding: ‘He was grappling with me for a period.’
The alleged incident ended when a colleague came to the door.
Ms B said she went to the basement of the building and spoke to a female colleague.
She said: ‘I think she was leaving; I just wanted to get out.’
She said she believed she told the colleague what had happened and later spoke to her line manager, but made no formal complaint.
Ms B said she was ‘really surprised that it had happened’. Later she binned a wristband that she had been wearing at the time of the alleged indecent assault. She said: ‘I felt like it was contaminated.’
When asked by advocate depute Alex Prentice, QC, if she had ‘invited, wanted or consented’ to the alleged behaviour, Ms B replied: ‘Absolutely not.’
She added: ‘I was alarmed because we were alone in Bute House. I knew my colleagues were down in the basement.
‘It is quite a lonely room if you are in there on your own and this was happening.
‘I felt quite alarmed and I wanted it to stop. I didn’t say anything. I was trying to get his hands off me but I couldn’t get my voice.’
Under cross-examination by Shelagh McCall, QC, representing Salmond, Ms B agreed that the politician had claimed he was scared of her, Nicola Sturgeon and his wife.
Mrs McCall said: ‘Did he [Salmond] say: “There are only three women in my life who I’m scared of and you are one of them?”’
Ms B said: ‘Yes, I can’t remember if it was on that occasion.’
Ms B also agreed that Salmond would sometimes ‘lose his temper’.
Asked if he had been in a ‘playful mood’ on the night of the alleged incident, Ms B said: ‘No, even if he was in a light-hearted mood, there was always an underlying tone – you would not relax in his company.’
Mrs McCall asked if it had been ‘high jinks’, and Ms B said: ‘I don’t think it could be described as high jinks; I certainly did not take it that way.’
Asked why she had not officially complained at the time, Ms B said: ‘If I had complained it would have been swept under the carpet and I would have suffered in my career
as a result. I have never seen anyone in a senior position in the Scottish Government tackle the First Minister about his behaviour.’
A former civil servant said Ms B had told her soon after the alleged indecent assault that Salmond had tried to ‘re-enact the Christmas card’.
Under cross-examination by Mrs McCall, the witness agreed Salmond had been in a ‘cheerful and playful’ mood on the evening of the alleged assault on Ms B.
In November 2017, Ms B said she had received a phone call which she did not answer from Salmond, followed up with a text message.
It said: ‘Hi… Alex here. Hope you are well. Can you kindly give me a ring tomorrow morning please?’ It then gave his mobile number.
Ms B said that by this point she had not seen Salmond since 2011. She said she spoke to a senior civil servant about the incident.
Asked if she wanted to have contact with Salmond, Ms B said: ‘No.’ A joint minute of agreed facts read to the jury said the unanswered call from Salmond was unconnected to the current case.
The Crown case has now concluded, with the defence expected to lead evidence today.
Salmond is on trial over accusations of sexual assault, spanning a period between June 2008 and November 2014.
His lawyers previously lodged special defences of consent and alibi.
‘It would have been swept under the carpet’