£825m hedge fund boss cleared of ‘octopus’ sex assault on junior banker
A MArrIED hedge fund manager has been cleared of an ‘octopus’-like assault on a junior banker.
Crispin Odey nodded briefly at the district judge after he was found not guilty of one count of indecently assaulting the woman at his home, having invited her round while his pregnant wife was away.
The 62-year-old – who has amassed a £825million fortune, earned in part by shorting stocks and shares – admitted raising the possibility of sleeping with the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, but denied one count of indecent assault.
returning his verdict at Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday, district judge Nicholas rimmer said: ‘I am left unsure of [the complainant’s account].
‘Despite the strength of her emotion and tears, her credibility has been thrown into question and her evidence is riddled with troubling inconsistencies.’
When giving evidence, father-ofthree Mr Odey said: ‘I am embarrassed to say if she had gone along with it, I would have gone further.’
Asked if he would have ‘taken the opportunity’ to sleep with her that night – at his Chelsea home, in 1998 – had the circumstances arisen, Mr Odey replied: ‘I might have ... I don’t know, it didn’t happen.’
Defence counsel Crispin Aylett, QC, cited ‘contradictions’ in the woman’s evidence and said she had a ‘natural tendency to embellish’.
The court heard the complainant went to the police in 2017 in the wake of the MeToo movement.
She had claimed ‘it was just a full groping, all over me’, describing it as an ‘octopus experience’.
Mr Aylett, summing up, said she ‘waited and waited until events on the other side of the world led her to believe she might become a standard bearer for a regiment of other complaints against Crispin Odey’.
The judge, returning his verdict, said: ‘I find troubling her obvious preoccupation with the Press, with your money, and her apparent desire for publicity of her complaint.’
He added: ‘Where there is any doubt in a criminal case, given the high standard of proof, it must be resolved in favour of the defendant.
‘I cannot dismiss the possibility that no more than your unwanted verbal advance or proposition to the complainant occurred.’ The judge said he found it ‘unsurprising’ that the Crown Prosecution Service initially decided not to charge Mr Odey, something reviewed and overturned by a chief prosecutor, despite no ‘stronger evidence’ emerging.
Addressing Mr Odey, the judge said: ‘I find you not guilty of this offence. I acquit you.’
Earlier, Oxford graduate Mr Odey had accused the woman of ‘exaggerating, massively’.
Mr Odey, who was 39 at the time, was accused of putting his hand down her shirt to touch her breast and putting his hand up her skirt.
Giving evidence, he said he propositioned the woman, then in her mid-20s, after she asked where ‘this is going to end’. He replied: ‘If you’re lucky, it might end up in the bed.’
He denied indecent assault and called the allegation ‘a horrible slur’.
The two-and-a-half day trial heard the woman sent an email to Mr Odey in 2013, in which she referred to him as a ‘sleazy, deceitful man who likes to prey on the innocence of young women’.
She admitted lying that she had instructed a law firm in a second email to him, after she had gone to the police in October 2017.
Mr Odey said it was then that he told his wife Nichola Pease, who has supported him, about the incident.
‘Credibility thrown into question’