A blind peer accused of sexually assaulting a masseuse by grabbing her bottom has told a court that he touches people to ‘get a sense’ of them when he feels vulnerable.
Nine-time Paralympic swimming gold medallist Lord Holmes of Richmond allegedly grabbed the complainant and asked her if she did ‘extras’ at a five-star hotel close to Parliament on April 7.
The 48-year-old, who went completely blind almost overnight at the age of 14, is accused of groping her after asking to touch her to see what she looked like – something she had consented to.
He is said to have asked her ‘Are you sure you’ve never done it?’ when the therapist told him she was a professional and tried to back away from him, a jury at Southwark Crown Court heard.
Tory peer and British Paralympic champion Lord Christopher Holmes (right) is accused of grabbing a masseuse’s bottom at a five star hotel’s spa. Left: Lord Holmes with his guide dog and a woman believed to be his wife outside Southwark Crown Court
The alleged incident occurred towards the end of a 90-minute deep tissue massage.
In his evidence, Holmes said he had chosen the hotel for a massage due to its good track record on catering for blind people and those with mobility issues.
He said he often feels vulnerable in public, particularly in taxis or restaurants and other businesses that are difficult about allowing his guide dog to accompany him.
Holmes has admitted asking to touch the masseuse, but denied it was due to any kind of sexual motivation.
The court heard that, during a previous massage session with a different therapist at the same hotel, the defendant had asked to touch the masseuse’s face but she had refused.
She had told him: ‘What does it matter what the massage therapist looks like?’
Holmes said: ‘I quite agree, it doesn’t matter what the massage therapist looks like.
‘I wasn’t asking to touch her to see if she was male or female, tall, short, fat or thin – it’s just to get the sense of another person and see what she looks like.
‘I understand how difficult it is to imagine what it must be like to have no sight whatsoever, because up until I was 14 I couldn’t have any indication of what that would be like, but that really is my world.
‘My world would stop here (in front of me) if I couldn’t contact that external world that you can get in the blink of an eye, and I try and use everything I’ve still got to try and construct that world.
‘So, through sound, smells, and, yes, touch, but touch as a means of being able to construct that world, touching objects, and, yes, touching people every single day.’
He continued: ‘(It’s) to get a sense of that other person – not to make a facsimile or an oil painting of them, just having a sense of that other person who was in a room that I didn’t really know, with a person I don’t know, lying on my back and feeling completely vulnerable.’
Holmes said he also feels very vulnerable with strangers, and that he is often photographed without his knowledge by people as they take pictures of his guide dog, Nancy.
‘I can’t even say how many times it happened,’ he said.
‘Last week on the tube coming home from work I didn’t know somebody was taking pictures of Nancy and me and until another passenger got involved and said ‘you can’t do that’.’
He said he and his wife Stephanie had made a New Year’s resolution to get fitter, and that he had booked the deep tissue treatment to help with tight muscles.
Holmes added that his wife of 17 years had been ‘incredibly supportive’ of him.
Holmes (centre with his meddles), who is a life peer in the House of Lords, is Britain’s most successful Paralympic swimmer, with a total of nine golds, five silvers and one bronze
Sarah Forshaw QC, defending the peer, asked him: ‘Since this allegation does she remain supportive?’
‘She has been amazing. Absolutely extraordinary,’ said Holmes.
Ms Forshaw asked him: ‘Had you thought to yourself how sighted people might feel about somebody else touching them?’
‘Whenever I need to touch anybody I always try to be as clear as I can and certainly would have never and I have never touched anybody without having that understanding and that consent,’ said Holmes.
Since becoming aware of the sexual assault allegation last April, Holmes said he continued to ask others if he could ‘see’ them through touch.
But he had not asked anyone to trace their silhouette, as he would be ‘terrified’ to do that in light of the allegation, the jury heard.
Being able to get a ‘sense’ of people helped him, Holmes said, with not feeling vulnerable in public due to his blindness.
‘Somebody a few years ago asked me if he could help me off the Tube,’ said Holmes.
‘When I got off the Tube it was only at that point that I realised they robbed my mobile phone.’
On the day of the incident, Holmes said that he accidentally broke the disposable underwear he had been provided because he could not work out which way they went on.
‘As I was pulling them up the elastic on this side just snapped,’ said Holmes.
‘I was just embarrassed, I was just embarrassed that the elastic snapped.’
Before the massage, the masseuse asked ‘is dog friendly’ in a ‘slightly aggressive, maybe accusatory tone’, said Holmes, before he reassured her it was a guide dog.
He told jurors that he had asked her to massage his left glute as it was tight from exercise but she had declined.
Holmes, joined in the dock by his assistance dog, black Labrador, Nancy, denied one charge of sexual assault at London’s Southwark Crown Court (file image pictured)
The masseuse’s account of him ‘flicking’ the towel and exposing his buttocks ‘absolutely did not happen’, the court heard.
Holmes said that an hour into the appointment he raised his hands at shoulder height and asked the masseuse if he could touch her ‘to see what she looked like’.
‘The reason that I had my hands here was because of the only two sentences she had said I didn’t necessarily know whether English was her first language and I was trying to make it as clear as possible what I was saying,’ he said.
‘She said yes in a tone which was light and normal.’
Sitting up, Holmes then used his fingertips to ‘gently’ trace the woman’s hairline, the sides of her back and stopped ‘somewhere around her lower back’.
‘She also says in one of her accounts, that when you were touching her face you were pinching her cheeks and making her very uncomfortable,’ said Ms Forshaw.
‘That simply never happened,’ said Holmes.
He further denied the woman’s account that he had grabbed her by the shoulders.
‘Is there any chance that when you took your hands down to her side you might have gone further than you thought and touched her buttocks,’ asked Ms Forshaw.
‘It is possible, it was only my fingertips,’ said Holmes.
‘But I do not think that was the case.’
Ms Foreshaw said: ‘Was there any way you could have touched her buttocks.’
Holmes: ‘Not at all.’
After the five-second ‘tracing’, Holmes said he raised his hands to shoulder height, palms facing her, and asked if he could touch the side of her arms.
The woman is said to have replied ‘I don’t feel comfortable’.
His barrister asked him: ‘Did you have any idea of how it might have looked to [the complainant] when you had your hands in front of you, palms pointing out towards her?’
‘No. Perhaps I should have and perhaps I should have explained even more,’ said Holmes.
The peer went on to deny asking to ‘touch her boobs’, or saying that it was not even a word he would ever use.
Apologising for making her uncomfortable, Holmes said he pointed to his chest in an apologetic motion.
To dispel the awkwardness, he said he asked her if she worked anywhere else, firmly denying asking if ‘she did extras’.
After the massage, Holmes said he never gave it as a second thought until a parliamentary aide and police officer told him next month a woman had made an allegation against him.
The former athlete, who retired from sport in 2002 and went into a career in law, denies one count of sexual assault.
The trial continues.