Blind UK Tory: Peer accused of groping masseuse claims he ‘traced silhouette to feel comfortable’ 

A blind Tory peer accused of groping a masseuse claimed today that he felt ‘vulnerable and ‘traced her silhouette to feel comfortable’. 

Lord Christopher Holmes of Richmond MBE, 48, allegedly pointed to his crotch and asked if the woman did ‘extras’ at a five star hotel’s spa on March 7 last year.

The peer vehemently denies sexually assaulting the masseuse and has told jurors at Southwark Crown Court he only asks to touch people with consent ‘to get a sense’ of them. 

Holmes said: ‘I saw it as an approach to gaining the silhouette of the other person. To get a sense of who was in the room with me. 

‘There is no suggestion whatsoever that I was seeking anything other than a deep tissue massage. ‘There is no sexual element in these treatments.’ 

Asked if he had intended to touch the woman to see how attractive she was, the peer replied: ‘It doesn’t matter what they look like, it doesn’t matter if they are tall, short, male or female, it’s getting a sense of the other person who is in that room with me.

‘That need that everybody has that is satisfied in a fraction of a second with a glance.

‘I needed that confirmation that sighted people don’t have to ask for. Sighted people are looking around all the time and getting that detail without consent without having to ask for it.’

Lord Holmes, who is visually impaired and a life peer in the House of Lords, is Britain’s most successful Paralympic swimmer, with a total of 9 golds, 5 silvers, and 1 bronze.

Following his retirement from professional swimming, he was elevated to the House of Lords in 2015.

He said he traced the woman’s silhouette to feel comfortable in the room but at no time did he grab her sexually.

Cross examining the peer yesterday, prosecutor Linda Strudwick said: ‘You asked her to put your hands on her.’

Lord Holmes replied: ‘I said, ”Is it okay to touch you to see what you look like”. I thought by asking slowly and putting my hands up she understood.’

Ms Strudwick continued: ‘She thought you wanted to touch her face. You didn’t tell her you wanted to touch her face, her shoulders, down her back towards her bum.’

Lord Holmes said: ‘I thought she understood after she said yes in an unconcerned manner.

‘In hindsight, I could have explained more. But to make sure she was okay I said, ”Is this okay?” and again she said ”yes” in an unconcerned manner.’

The prosecutor said there was no reference to him asking the masseuse if she was ‘okay’ after he ran his fingers towards her bottom in his police statement. 

Sarah Forshaw, QC, defending Lord Holmes, asked him: ‘The suggestion is being made in bold terms that you booked a deep tissue massage so you could be pleasured sexually.’

Lord Holmes said it was ‘completely not the case’ and ‘the thought of anything sexual couldn’t be more than multi galaxies away’. 

He said he felt ‘vulnerable’ when the masseuse did not introduced herself and slammed the treatment room’s door shut.

‘When the door closed, I had no idea who that person was and no easy way of verifying who that person was,’ he said.

He said he undressed and laid face down as the masseuse began the deep tissue massage without any introduction.

The woman had asked him whether his dog was ‘friendly’ in a ‘slightly aggressive, maybe accusatory tone’ as he reassured her it was a guide dog, the court heard.

Lord Holmes said: ‘When someone is having a go at a guide dog I feel they are not wanting a dog or indeed a blind person in the situation.’

He said he obeyed the masseuse’ instructions and turned over onto his back.

But he felt uncomfortable after he had accidentally broken the disposable underwear he had been given because he could not work out which way they went on.

He said: ‘I felt vulnerable because all that’s being said is ‘turn over’, the towel was taken off me and I had no idea what was happening with the towel.

‘She could be holding the towel away from me, she could be taking a picture of me, she could be looking at me and laughing at me, that sense of not knowing.’

Lord Holmes told the court he asked the woman if he could touch her to see what she looked like to get a sense of who he was in the room with. 

Ms Forshaw asked the peer to describe to the ‘sighted’ jury what it was like to be blind and why he may have felt vulnerable after the masseuse did not introduce herself.

Lord Holmes said: ‘In everyday situations, I feel vulnerability before I start my day job.

‘Sometimes at dinner, I have to touch the food on my plate. It’s excruciating that I have to do it, it’s embarrassing but it’s what I have to do.

‘I was robbed on the Tube and I was robbed on New Year’s Eve and I only knew what was happening when the fist hit my face.

‘Everyone that can see the danger, I have to protect myself from the danger.

‘I can’t be one of those people who have a confident handshake, I don’t know what’s in front of me.

‘I don’t know if I’m going to push my hand onto the other person or knock something over, and it leads to embarrassing situations.

‘I try to keep it inside and crack on with things. I try to work and be judged on those terms. I’ve kept it inside and just try to push on.’

He said he traced the woman’s silhouette to feel comfortable in the room but at no time did he grab her sexually.

Asked if he could have been clearer about what he was going to do, Lord Holmes replied: ‘I thought I’d explain it with my words and my hand gestures.

‘She said yes in an unconcerned way after I asked if it was okay.

‘Perhaps I could have explained some more if it would have helped with the language difficulties.’

Yesterday, Lord Holmes told jurors he had asked the masseuse to massage his left glute as it was tight from exercise after he had removed his clothes, but she had declined.

He said: ‘Because at that stage I would have been fully clothed I could have pointed at my glute and the experience would have been a lot different for both of us.’ 

He said the masseuse’s account of him ‘flicking’ the towel and exposing his buttocks ‘absolutely did not happen’.

The prosecutor said the peer had not mentioned he felt ‘vulnerable’ in his prepared statement to police but he said it was difficult to talk about his disability.

He said: ‘It’s very difficult to talk about blindness. I’ve been rejected from hotels, supermarkets, from pubs’.

The prosecutor said: ‘I’m going to suggest that there are a number of differences in the prepared statement when compared to the evidence you have given.’

Lord Holmes replied: ‘This pre-prepared statement was prepared by my legal advisors, I had one telephone call to go through it.’ 

He said the tone was ‘not correct’ but he had ‘no concern that there were any matters that were incorrect.’ He said: ‘I would have liked it to be clearer and fuller.

‘Given more detail, but at the stage, it was prepared as I understood it was an initial statement.’

Ms Strudwick suggested the peer’s statement was full of ‘inconsistencies and discrepancies’ and claimed he always planned for a ‘sexual element’ in his deep-tissue manage treatment.

She said: ‘It is the prosecution case that you used hotel spas and hotel therapists for the purpose of achieving sexual relief, getting them to do extras.’

Lord Holmes replied: ‘That’s completely untrue.’

An avid athlete, Lord Holmes had continued swimming after losing his sight, training with a sighted team preparing for the Olympics. 

In her closing speech, Sarah Forshaw QC, defending Lord Holmes, said: ‘In this case, the only evidence you have is [the complainant].

‘You have to be sure that [she] is the sort of person that tells it like it is, the unembellished, unblemished truth.’

Jurors were told that the masseuse remained in the hotel spa for two and half hours after the alleged attack, getting herself increasingly ‘worked up’ and ‘upset’.

The reason jurors were shown evidence of the complainant’s WhatsApp conversations with her partner and notes from her counselling sessions was ‘not to humiliate her’, said Ms Forshaw.

‘We disclose to you material that undermines the prosecution and might assist the defence.

‘So yes, I make no apologies for going through it with a fine toothed comb and try to find examples, so when you judge [the complainant’s] reliability you know more about her than the lady who comes to court and cries in front of you.’

Jurors were reminded that after being arrested for assaulting a police officer, the woman had told her counsellor that her boyfriend had ‘abandoned her’ in the cell.

But when told in court that he had in fact called her many times and even try to see her, she answered ‘It is true, that is how I felt’.

‘That is a clue to the misunderstanding in this case.

‘History rewritten because that is has she felt about what had happened to her,’ said Ms Forshaw.

The complainant, argued Ms Forshaw, is someone who ‘blows things out of proportion’ and always has ‘the worst interpretation’ of things that happened.

Her account of the encounter had changed in ‘small but significant ways’, from her first telling the manager, to her evidence in court, the court heard.

‘If something has truly happened to use we can tell people about it, and every time we tell someone about it it is exactly the same.

‘Why? Because we are drawing on our own experience, we are not trying to remember what we said last time.’

Pointing to the various defence witnesses’ giving evidence of Holmes’ character, Ms Forshaw said it was ‘wholly out of character’ for him to either commit the assault or ‘feel so invulnerable’.

‘Christopher Holmes didn’t go to some backdoor massage parlour called Happy Endings or some backroom in King’s Cross.

‘He went to [the five star hotel],’ said the barrister.

Earlier Holmes had told the court he only touches people ‘with consent’ to ‘get a sense of them’ as part of attempting to construct an image of the world around him.

He had traced the masseuse’s ‘silhouette’, he’d admitted, but in a non-sexual way and had never squeezed her bottom or propositioned her.

Ms Forshaw said that she wished she could have delivered her closing speeches to a jury wearing a black covering over their eyes.

‘Everything we do, all of our experiences inform the way we judge the facts that are before us.

‘Everyone of us is sighted,’ she added.

‘When we talk about touching someone it has a different connotation, only because it is unnecessary.’

He earlier told the court that his wife of 17 years Stephanie has been ‘incredibly supportive’ of him since the allegation was made.

Lord Holmes, of Richmond, Surrey, denies one count of sexual assault.

The trial continues.