My acquittal is not a cause to celebrate... it’s simply a relief
‘I’m a private shy person at the best of times and these were the worst of times. So I retreated into the shell and love of my family’
If a Southwark Crown Court jury had decided differently this week, Samuel Armstrong would now be spending Christmas in a prison cell. The 24-year-old former chief of staff to Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative MP, has spent seven days on trial, accused of raping a female worker at the Houses of Parliament. On Thursday he was unanimously cleared on all charges.
Instead he will spend Christmas Day with his parents and two younger brothers at their home in Danbury, Essex. They will visit church in the morning and enjoy a traditional lunch of Kellybronze turkey, which are reared nearby. But even as he describes the classic family Christmas, the pale young suited man slumped in a chair opposite me betrays little trace of the joys of freedom.
“This is not a cause for celebration but simple relief,” he says in his first newspaper interview since the verdict. “My life has been turned upside down. I haven’t slept or eaten for a year. And I was innocent.”
In a week in which two other Metropolitan Police rape trials have collapsed because of crucial evidence not being properly disclosed to the defence – prompting the force to review all open sex abuse cases – Mr Armstrong is scathing about failings in the legal system that he claims need to be addressed.
First is the issue of late disclosure, which a report published earlier this summer by Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate and Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary highlighted as a serious cause for concern.
In Mr Armstrong’s case two crucial pieces of evidence were made available to his defence team just eight working days before the trial when it emerged that the woman, in her 20s, had not wanted to release medical records showing she suffered depression and anxiety. Phone records also revealed that hours after the alleged attack she tipped off a tabloid newspaper to try to get a sympathetic account published.
Mr Armstrong described that revelation as a “bombshell moment” and says his legal team had to go to court to secure the evidence that should have been made available to them much earlier.
The problem, he says, is pressure to secure more rape convictions meaning due process was not being followed by the police and the CPS, thus putting innocent people at risk.
“Disclosure can in certain cases not happen,” he says. “It’s really important it does because the whole rule of law in this country requires everybody fulfilling their legal obligations – particularly the state.”
The second issue is the lack of anonymity afforded those accused of sexual offences, despite complainants having theirs guaranteed for life.
On this he says he has been closely supported by the Nigel Evans, the Tory Ribble Valley MP, who was himself cleared of a string of sex offence charges in 2014. “We all know the type of case where the charge sometimes screams louder than the facts,” Mr Armstrong says. “In those certain cases it seems right to me to make sure the presumption of innocence isn’t subverted by the process of naming people in the press.”
On the evening of Oct 13 last year, Mr Armstrong and the woman had been drinking strong gin and tonics, amaretto and shots of tequila in the Palace of Westminster’s Sports and Social Club.
The court heard they were seen on CCTV walking arm in arm to Craig Mackinlay’s office, where they had sex twice before the woman ran out in tears.
She claimed in court she had fallen asleep and awoke to find Mr Armstrong having sex with her. He sent her a number of texts after she left inquiring if she was OK.
At 5.30 the following morning two male police officers turned up to arrest Mr Armstrong at the Clapham flat he shared with friends. He was taken to Brixton police station where he was made to strip. He was then subjected to “a series of very invasive forensic medical examinations”. His first phone call was to his parents, Andrew (who runs a construction firm) and Amanda. “I cried on the phone to my father and I don’t think I have ever done that before,” he says. “We are a particularly reserved English family who don’t really express emotion outwardly but at that moment it felt entirely appropriate.”
For the past 14 months, Mr Armstrong has been living at his parents’ home. They have helped with court costs that stretch to a “six-figure sum” – only a fraction of which he expects to recoup. At times, he says, his mental and physical health was pushed to the brink. “Despite what you know to be true, you live a sort of purgatory existence and feel uncomfortable even leaving the house,” he says.
“I’m quite a private shy person at the best of times and these were the worst of times. So I retreated into the shell and love of my family.”
The former grammar school boy was motivated to go into politics by the fallout of the 2007 recession and the impact it had on his father’s business. He began to campaign for the Conservatives while still studying for a degree at Nottingham University. For a time he worked for Mark Clarke, the so-called “Tatler Tory” and failed parliamentary candidate who was named as a bully in a suicide note left by Elliott Johnson, the young activist. Mr Clarke has always vehemently denied any allegations of wrongdoing.
Mr Armstrong describes Mr Johnson as a good friend and says: “I’ve been very hurt by his death.”
He does not yet know if he will return as Mr Mackinlay’s chief of staff – who he says has been hugely supportive throughout the process – but insists he wishes to remain in politics. “More so than ever I feel an obligation to secure change,” he says.
For the time being, however, he is focused on clawing back the remnants of the life he lost. “It was a completely humiliating experience and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,” he says. “I hope it is possible to rebuild my life but I just don’t know.”