Top Army off icer denies transgender sex assault
AN Army officer has denied sexually assaulting a transgender woman in an u p market restaurant.
Acting Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Hughes, 38, told a court he had gone to the bar in the Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow’s West End after he had been on a date.
He said he saw a woman he recognised and ended up speaking to two other women who were sitting beside her, including the alleged victim.
Hughes claimed she was joking with him for being ‘military’, told him to be ‘more flamboyant’ and touched his chest area.
He told Glasgow Sheriff Court that, in a ‘slightly camp’ manner, he touched her on the chest area and said: ‘Oh, stop it.’
Hughes denies touching her breast in the bar in Ashton Lane, Hillhead, on November 14, 2014.
In earlier evidence, the woman, who cannot be i dentified f or legal reasons, claimed he did touch her breast.
She also alleged he made a number of transphobic remarks, but he has already been cleared of that charge.
Denying the sexual assault charge, Hughes said: ‘The breast did not occur to me at all.’ In evidence, he said the woman told him she had gone through a change from male to female and had spent £40,000 to look the way she did. Hughes was asked what happened in the pub that evening and said there had been ‘slight mocking’ of hi m f or being ‘quite military’.
Asked what the alleged victim said to him, Hughes told Sheriff David Young, QC: ‘She said, “Perhaps you could be a bit more flamboyant like me” and leant over to me and, as I recall, touched me here [on his chest] at that time.’
Defence counsel Sarah Livingstone asked: ‘What did you do?’
Hughes replied: ‘In a similar jokey way, as I am also making my way past to go to the toilet, I repeated what she had done to me and said, “Oh, stop it,” in a similarly flamboyant way.’
Miss Livingstone asked: ‘Slightly camp?’ He replied: ‘Slightly camp.’
Asked if there was anything he did that he considered to be sexual, Hughes said: ‘No.’
The court was told he had ‘mimicked’ what she did to him.
Some days afterwards, Hughes was advised the police would want to speak to him, so he made arrangements to do so.
He fought back tears when asked by Miss Livingstone how the allegation had affected him and said: ‘On an emotional side, I have had to explain to colleagues, friends and also the structure of the Army which deals with promotions – which was happening at that time – and say what had happened.
‘My integrity has been unfairly called into question and that makes me very angry.
‘Most of all, I have had to go and explain to my parents what had happened.’
Under cross- examination by procurator fiscal depute Stuart Fauré, Hughes denied the touch had been ‘ a crude medical examination’.
It was put to him: ‘You saw her as a person of ridicule.’ Hughes said: ‘No, that’s not true.’
He later said: ‘I did not touch her breast, in my opinion.’
The prosecutor said: ‘But you did touch her chest.’ He answered: ‘It was in the chest area.’
Earlier, the alleged victim’s partner at the time gave evidence, but made it clear that she did not want to be in court.
She said she was scared of her former partner and claimed she had been ‘ coerced’ into giving a statement. She added: ‘My statement, which I gave to the police, I was very, very frightened and I was coerced and I was coached by [ex-partner].’
The woman claimed her former girlfriend ‘told her the key words’ and that, due to their domestic situation, she went along with it.
The witness added: ‘She said she could make some money out of it.’
The case continues.
‘Integrity called into question’