Court in session for day four of the Alex Salmond trial. First witness of the day is Woman F - she is named in two charges, one of sexual assault and one of sexual assault with intent to rape
Woman F describes work as a ScotGov civil servant; it involved her spending time with Alex Salmond, and work carried out at Bute House
Woman F tells the court that Alex Salmond kissed her on the mouth “out of the blue” one day at Bute House. She says she was “taken aback” and was shocked; but didn’t say anything as “the first minister is not someone you would like to express displeasure to”.
Woman F says on another occasion when she brought paperwork to Alex Salmond he said they should go upstairs to his bedroom because it “would be warmer there”; she says it was “very cold” in Bute House sitting room where she brought him the papers.
Woman F says Alex Salmond had a bottle of Mai Tai, an alcoholic spirit, in his bedroom, and wanted them to drink it. She says he was “drinking steadily” but she just wet her lips because “I never particularly liked drinking with the first minister”
Woman F says as she tried to leave the room, Alex Salmond told her to sit on the bed. She said she felt a “rising panic” but says “this was very much in a working environment and culture where you do whatever the first minister asks of you.”
Woman F says she found herself lying on the bed with Alex Salmond on top of her, running his hands under her dress and over her breasts, kissing her face “haphazardly, like someone who had been drinking quite heavily”. Says he was murmuring something like “you’re irresistible”
Asked if she invited Alex Salmond to advance, woman F says “absolutely not”. She says she kept saying she needed to leave, and was feeling “a mix of panic and disbelief than it could be happening. I knew I needed to get away, but how on earth to actually achieve that?”
Woman F says she was worried Alex Salmond was going to try to remove her tights or underwear and “push things further”. However “either he eventually stopped it or his weight shifted so I was able to take advantage of that and get up from the bed.”
Woman F says the idea of reporting the alleged incident to anyone outside of “an insider context” would have been “completely alien”. But she had a “sense if looming horror that this was something sufficiently serious that I had to do something, I had to tell someone.”
Woman F says she spoke to a colleague, but found the alleged incident “extremely difficult to talk about”. She says she wanted to get across that it was “something more serious than the lower level behaviour that we almost took as a baseline”
Woman F says she met with Alex Salmond in his Holyrood office and he apologised; she says he said the alleged incident had been “unacceptable” and that “he had been drinking more than usual, not just that night but in general, due to stress”
Gordon Jackson now cross examining Woman F for the defence. On the matter of the alleged goodnight kiss, he says Alex Salmond was “quite a tactile sort of man”; Woman F says “certainly in relation to women, yes”.
Gordon Jackson suggests there was “a bit of cuddling” between Alex Salmond and Woman F on the bed; he says it was described to him as a “sleepy cuddle”. Woman F says “absolutely not, I refute any suggestion that I cuddled the first minister”.
Gordon Jackson suggests both Woman F and Alex Salmond had a lot to drink; she says “I emphatically deny that, I drank very little”. She says the first minister “liked to encourage staff to drink with him”, but says she “personally didn’t like to drink much in his company”.
Gordon Jackson asks whether Woman F thought of going to the police; she says this was “unthinkable”. Even if she was viewing this as an assault with intent to rape? “I wasn’t processing what was happening through the lexicon of criminal justice.”
Woman F says Gordon Jackson seems to “underestimate the context all this happening in”. “This was in the run-up to the referendum on independence. Everything we did which was outward facing had potential ramifications which went well beyond personal experience”.
Woman F says she felt a “huge responsibility” - if complaints against Alex Salmond had “gone into the public domain”, it “could have been used to try and influence public opinion” in the referendum campaign. She also felt “real loyalty” to Mr Salmond.
One more witness before lunch - another civil servant who says he met Woman F after the alleged incident. He says she seemed “stressed, uncertain about what to say about it, and distressed and not herself”
Back in session at the High Court, and the next witness is Woman G. Alex Salmond is accused of sexually assaulting her on two occasions
Woman G says she was leaving a restaurant with Alex Salmond, who she worked for, when he “smacked my buttocks”. She says she was shocked; “it felt demeaning, it made me feel like I was a plaything to him.”
Woman G says she told a colleague about the alleged incident, but “just moved past it”; “he was my boss...and he just happened to be the most powerful person in the country”
Woman G now talking about another alleged incident where she says Alex Salmond “told” her to come back to Bute House with him after a dinner to drop off some papers.
Woman G says Alex Salmond told her not to leave after she dropped off the papers, and “beckoned for me to sit next to him on the sofa”. She says she did, as “you didn’t tend to be in a position where you could disagree with him.” She says he then offered her shots of limoncello
Woman G says she “began to feel slightly intimidated and trapped”. She says Alex Salmond made inappropriate comments, put his arm around her and “leaned in” for a kiss. She says she kept trying to make excuses so she could leave.
Woman G says she tried to make up an excuse about a guest needing to get into her flat, making her ringtone go off. “I knew that if I didn’t get out, then something really serious was about to happen”. She says she then stood up and walked out.
Woman G says she messaged a colleague saying she wouldn’t do her shift the next day because Alex Salmond had “been out of order”. She says she was “extremely embarrassed” and “confused” and “hated him for what he had just done”.
Woman G says “it just wasn’t an option” to go to the police. “I felt if I became involved in some kind of scandal with him...it would essentially lose the independence referendum because of reports in the media and what his political opponents would do with this information”.
Cross examining for the defence, Gordon Jackson asks if Alex Salmond was being “playful” when he was alleged to have smacked Woman G’s bottom. She replies “I think it was extremely inappropriate”
Gordon Jackson says these were things that were “thought of as nothing at the time”, which years later have become a “criminal thing”. Woman G says they were serious enough so staffing arrangements were changed so women were not allowed to work alone with Alex Salmond
Final witness for the day is Woman G’s mother. She says Woman G told her that she knew something about Alex Salmond that could “change everything”; mother says “I remember I said, oh my god, has he killed Moira?”
Court finished for the day
