Banker cleared of punching unfaithful wife over hotel sex
Lawyer’s husband spat in her face in row after affair but judge throws out conviction for hitting her
WHEN banker Marc Grosjean discovered details of sex games scribbled on hotel notepaper in his wife’s handbag he assumed the worst.
Artemis “Mitzi” Berberi initially managed to calm him down by claiming the note describing sex acts was merely a silly game she had played with a girlfriend.
But Grosjean could not rid himself of the suspicion that his wife of three years had cheated on him. He checked her car’s sat nav and found it had been programmed to direct her to the same hotel named on the paper he found in her bag. The discovery culminated in a furious row in which the 43-year-old banker spat in Ms Berberi’s face.
Grosjean, a former director at Credit Suisse and Anoa Capital, who was convicted by magistrates of both spitting at and punching his wife in October, had his conviction for common assault upheld yesterday. He was, however, cleared of striking Ms Berberi, the head of legal affairs for Fox International Channels, after inconsistencies were found in her account.
Grosjean discovered the note when he searched her bag late at night after returning from a business trip to Abu Dhabi, in November last year.
When he confronted Ms Berberi she claimed to have invented the sex game with a female friend and denied she was having an affair. That evening the couple met in the Crown & Sceptre pub near their home in Kensington to discuss their relationship, before Ms Berberi went out for dinner with the same female friend.
Ms Berberi, who claimed in court that Grosjean was threatening to expose the affair, which she denied, to her work colleagues, said that when she got home she found him “in a rage”. An argument flared and Grosjean spat in her face when she told him to “f--- off ”.
The court heard that after spending the night on the sofa, Grosjean went to
‘We have some sympathy as you found out your wife was having an affair and were frustrated’
the marital bedroom to “get the truth”. The pair grappled with a computer and during the struggle Ms Berberi suffered bruising to her arms, an injury to her thumb and a bump to her face. The court heard Ms Berberi called her mother and then a friend repeatedly, saying “he is hitting me”. She claimed Grosjean chased her around the house before cornering her and punched her in the face in front of their young son. Ms Berberi also said he tried to tear her wedding ring from her finger. Grosjean admitted to spitting in her face, wrestling with her for the computer but denied punching her or trying to strangle her. Sitting with two magistrates, Judge Joanna Korner QC noted inconsistencies between the account given by Ms Berberi when the assault happened and what she gave as evidence in court. An injury appeared on Ms Berberi that was not visible in photographs taken on the day of the incident and that had not been mentioned by witnesses. Judge Korner told Grosjean the spitting was “despicable” but added: “We have some sympathy, as you found out your wife was having an affair and were frustrated.” She substituted his earlier sentence of eight weeks in prison suspended for two years with an absolute dis-