Magazine boss ‘drugged woman’s drink and raped her’

Founder of luxury publication accused of attack during champagne party at exclusive club

A LUXURY magazine publisher raped a woman at a private club after giving her a drugged drink, a court was told.

Antioco Piras, 36, co-founder and publisher of the food and lifestyle magazine Four, met the woman at a champagne party at Home House in Marylebone, central London, on Dec 20 2014. She claims she became dizzy and unwell after Mr Piras gave her a drink that she now believes was spiked.

The jury at Southwark Crown Court heard that Mr Piras forced himself on the woman after she passed out in one of the exclusive club’s bedrooms.

Mr Piras, who denies rape, says that the woman invented the story after drinking too much.

The alleged victim, aged in her twenties, arrived at the club, set in three Georgian town houses, at around 8.45pm. She said that she had drunk two glasses of champagne before Mr Piras offered her a different drink.

“Obviously, I went to smell it, he said ‘just drink it, it’s nice, you will like it’,” said the woman who gave evidence from behind a screen to protect her anonymity. She added: “It’s after that drink that I started feeling the way I felt.”

She said she started to be sick and Mr Piras told her she could go upstairs to “sleep it off” in one of the club’s bedrooms. Nick Wayne, prosecuting, told the court that she woke up to find Mr Piras on top of her in his underwear.

Mr Wayne said she “felt heavily intoxicated, couldn’t open her eyes properly or move” but told Mr Piras “to get off her”.

Judy Khan, defending, asked the woman: “Are you absolutely sure that you only had, in what must have been several hours, those two glasses of champagne?” The woman replied: “Yeah, one hundred per cent.”

Ms Khan said the woman had said to police “I can handle my drink”, and told them of other nights when she had drunk far more without ill effect.

Ms Khan added: “I’m suggesting there was never any time when you were given a drink by Mr Antioco Piras… you were mixing your drinks as well, and that’s why you got into that condition and you have chosen to blame him for that.”

Mr Piras had told police he returned to the party after helping the woman to his room, but went back at around 2.30am to charge his phone. He said that was when the woman “suddenly” started to kiss him. He claimed that they kissed for a couple of minutes but that he “stopped it, making it clear he felt uncomfortable”.

Four counts Tom Parker Bowles – the food critic and son of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall – and Andrea Petrini, food writer and founder of the chefs’ collective Gelinaz! among its contributors.

It was named the World’s Best Food Magazine at the 2014 Gourmand Awards and is distributed to Qatar and British Airways, Armani Hotels and Resorts as well as Palazzo Versace in Dubai.

The trial continues.