Former SNP councillor accused of sexual assault in taxi, court hears
A former SNP councillor sexually assaulted a colleague in the back of a taxi following a party fundraising event, a court heard.
Lewis Ritchie, 38, is alleged to have pounced on the woman by forcing his tongue into her mouth as the pair travelled home after the SNP bash at the party’s clubrooms in Edinburgh city centre.
Ritchie is also said to have sexually assaulted and made sleazy comments to a waitress at the cafe he owns in the city’s Leith area.
The former nationalist councillor is alleged to have deliberately rubbed himself up against the woman while she worked shifts at the All Good Cafe on Easter Road.
The alleged victim told a trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court that on one occasion Ritchie left her bruised after slapping her on the buttocks while the pair were alone in the back of the cafe.
She told the trial he would regularly make sexual comments towards her and also about female customers who were in the cafe when she worked there between June and October 2019.
He is also facing a further allegation of climbing into the bed of a third alleged victim and repeatedly asking to cuddle her following the SNP conference at the SECC in Glasgow in October 2017.
Ritchie, appearing under the name John Ritchie, denies all the charges against him and appeared for trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
The first alleged victim said she had been at a SNP function at the party’s clubrooms at the capital’s South St Andrews Street in April 2016. Shesaidsheandritchieleftthe venue together and agreed to share a taxi as they were both going in the same direction. She said Ritchie was “extremely drunk” and was “slurring his words” and when it came for him to get out of the vehicle he had asked her for a kiss. The woman, in her 50s, said she was “surprised” by the request and in response had given him “a kiss on the cheek”.
She said Ritchie told her ‘no I want a proper kiss’ and then forced his tongue into the her mouth.
The summary trial in front
of Sheriff Fiona Tait was partheard due to the lack of court time and was adjourned to later this year.
Ritchie resigned from the
SNP in 2018 and is currently an independent councillor for the Leith area.