Richard Holden: Months of hell, 15 minutes for my name to be cleared of sexual assault (original) (raw)

It’s a Friday afternoon in May at Southwark crown court in London and a jury has just taken a matter of minutes to acquit me of category three sexual assault, specifically “over-the-clothing touching”, after a five-day trial. The judge says I “leave court without a stain on [my] character” and adds: “I hope he can pick up his career where it left off.” My barrister tells me those comments from a judge are practically unprecedented in her 30 years at the bar.

It has been, to put it lightly, a bit of an odd week. In what way odd? Prosecution witness after prosecution witness taking the stand to give evidence that supported the defence; the police officer in charge of the case in the witness box being questioned as to why he ignored or did not pursue, time after time after time, vital evidence that didn’t match the complainant’s story; the prosecution QC asking to clarify exactly what I was being accused of — because it kept changing; finally, the prosecution pitching to “let the jury decide” what it thought was the version of events I was being accused of because it could not tell the jury. That sort of odd.

As I make my way out of court, exhausted and strangely empty after the worst 15 months of my life, Charlotte, my girlfriend, turns to me: “How on earth did we end up here?”

Good point. How did we end up here?

February 2017. I was at my office — working as a special adviser in the Ministry of Defence — when I received a phone call from the Metropolitan police informing me that I was under investigation for sexual assault. Could I come in for an interview? I assumed there had been some mistake — I would pop down to the station, clear things up and carry on with my life. Instead my life was plunged into a Kafkaesque nightmare.

Before I even got to the police station I fought off an attempt to suspend me immediately from my job. I was told that the complainant had also written to the Cabinet Office — I argued that that could hardly be reasonable when I did not even know the allegation against me and when the Cabinet Office wouldn’t even tell me the details of the complaint it had received. But I reluctantly agreed to go on “special leave” until everything was cleared up. I thought it would be a matter of days — a couple of weeks at most.

On February 14 I took the train to Sutton police station in south London. Officers put it to me that I had put my hands inside the coat of a woman at a house party at my home, dropped them down to the back of her knees, then up her skirt, grabbing her bum over her tights and underwear and reaching between her thighs with one or two of my fingers. I was astonished and was clear that this did not occur. I told them my girlfriend Charlotte and I had used the party as an opportunity to show her friends that we were a couple for the first time.

Charlotte waited for hours in the pub round the corner for the interview to finish on what can hardly have been the most romantic Valentine’s Day ever.

Six weeks later I was asked to offer my resignation, which, not wanting to leave my colleagues or boss in the lurch for months with someone on “special leave”, I duly did. Then? Nothing. Months and months of nothing.

The police contacted everyone they could get hold of who had been at the party, but when none of the other guests could back up the complainant’s story, the police simply refused to take statements from them. Meanwhile, unceremoniously removed from a job I had worked all my adult life aspiring to, and struggling to pay my rent, I spent my days stuffing my CV into the hands of anyone who would take it, playing video games to numb my brain and sinking slowly more into despair.

Two weeks after I resigned, a general election was called. I had stood as the Conservative candidate in Preston in 2015 and a few associations from the northwest knew me as a result. I received calls from a couple of people — come to our seat and stand: we want you as our candidate and you could win. I feigned lack of interest — told them it wasn’t the right time. I couldn’t tell them the truth: that my life had been torn apart and there was no sign that the police were going to conclude this investigation.

Things became more and more difficult. My girlfriend and I broke up in late summer under the relentless pressure of the situation. I managed to secure a job with Newington, a public affairs agency.

And then the “Pestminster” scandal broke. Someone leaked the details of the investigation to the BuzzFeed website. It approached me for comment and told me it would publish at 8pm. Newington fired me by email that afternoon, before the story was published, and issued a statement citing its “highest ethical standards”. It did not seem to matter that I hadn’t done anything unethical: 8pm came and other outlets picked it up.

The next day, after nine months of nothing, the police informed me by letter that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was charging me. Unemployed and unemployable in the fields I had always worked in, I spoke to my solicitor, Mark, and he got a barrister friend of his to represent me at a reduced rate. All my legal costs still needed to be paid upfront. I was refused legal aid as my earnings for the year would be more than £37,000.

The police told my solicitor I needed to appear at Westminster magistrates’ court; I would be appearing before the chief magistrate of England and Wales. I was photographed going in and out of Court No 1. My hearing was straight after that of two terrorism suspects remanded in Belmarsh for allegedly plotting to assassinate Theresa May, whose leadership campaign I had worked on 18 months before. I pleaded not guilty and was told I needed to attend Southwark crown court for my committal hearing in January to set a date for my trial.

In January 2018, 11 months after I first walked into Sutton police station, I attended Southwark. On arrival, Mark told me the bad news: first, the earliest trial date was six months away and, second, the crown had decided to prosecute me with a top QC. This meant I needed to hire a QC myself, at potentially many multiples of the cost of Mark’s friendly barrister. Eventually we were “lucky” — a trial date was found in late May. I carried on in limbo. Again, I managed to find a job.

Then we got to the initial stage of the disclosure of the evidence the police had actually gathered. I looked through it, bemused. There didn’t seem to be a single witness who backed up the complainant’s story. One person said I seemed a bit drunk at one point late in the night. Another person said he saw me hug someone, but that may have been my girlfriend. They were the prosecution’s witnesses. I remembered all the people who said they had been contacted by the police, but who said they didn’t see anything. I flicked through the evidence. No mention of any of them.

Because the police had comprehensively failed to investigate, a number of friends of the complainant who had attended the party with her, and even Charlotte, hadn’t been interviewed. A senior work colleague to whom I was on the phone for a quarter of an hour just 20 minutes before the alleged incident hadn’t been spoken to. About a dozen more people who were there at the time of the alleged incident had been dismissed with no statement taken.

I couldn’t understand why the police hadn’t taken statements. My solicitor said it was a case of “pre-interview interviewing” — sifting out people who do not back up a case that is being constructed — even though the police’s legal responsibility is to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry. My solicitor was going to have a lot of work to do gathering basic evidence — all at cost to me. The paradox is that the more evidence you have to support your innocence, the more it costs you to defend yourself.

Two of my friends, a married couple, had given taped interviews to the police. The officer in charge said this hadn’t happened and the tapes didn’t exist. We sent the email from the officer who took the interviews. In it he said the officer in charge had said that they “added nothing” so their interviews “wouldn’t be turned into statements”.

Also, the police hadn’t bothered to look at the complainant’s phone, her online communications, or any of her social media. We knew that she’d “liked” a photo of herself at the party the day after it had happened. We knew she’d sent messages to her friends on the night, after she alleged she’d been attacked, saying she’d “had a great night” and “thanks for the invite to the party”.

Richard Holden at Southwark Crown Court, London, UK - 03 Jan 2018

It took the jury just a matter of minutes to acquit Holden

VICKIE FLORES/LNP/REX/

She and I had been in contact via text and Facebook Messenger before the party. We asked the police to get this evidence as part of disclosure. Thirteen months after interviewing her, they asked to look at her phone. She refused, citing “privacy”. Eventually she allowed them to look through her phone. Nothing was there. Any messages between us, automatically backed up to the cloud, according to the police, from her phone settings, had vanished. Unbelievable, you may think, but there was nothing.

Six weeks before the trial, Charlotte and I got back together. We both realised that we were not going to let this entire nightmare be the thing that kept us apart. What happens in the future, who knows, but we wanted to go through this together.

Finally the trial began. The complainant alleged that I repeatedly approached her while she was with a group of friends, paying her compliments and hugging her. She then alleged that I came up to her in the middle of an open-plan downstairs room containing about 15-20 people, put my hand inside her coat, down the back of her legs, then up her knee-length skirt, then down the outside of her tights — and then reached between her legs, from behind, before being dragged off her forcibly by an onlooker who screamed “Get off” or “F*** off”.

The person who left the party with the complainant was called as a prosecution witness. How did the defendant leave the party?

Mr Holden gave her a hug, released her and we left together.

Did anyone shout or scream anything at the party?

No.

Did anyone drag anyone off anyone?

No.

Did Mr Holden approach a group of you, her, and other friends, hugging and complimenting her through the night?

No.

All his answers were further corroborated by the complainant’s other friends who attended the party, whom the police had not bothered to interview after calling them and asking a couple of questions.

A friend of mine was called as a prosecution witness. The CPS had asked what she meant by saying Mr Holden was drunk. She said, as she said in her initial statement, that I wasn’t unsteady on my feet or slurring my words. She was asked to clarify further. She said that on a scale of being mildly tipsy to people you see plastered on a Saturday night I was very much at the mildly tipsy end of that.

I noticed the jury members exchanging bemused glances with each other.

Statements were then read from other people the complainant spoke to, making the allegation. Each was significantly different. In one instance I was said to have grabbed her “bare flesh hard” and “nobody would have seen it”. In another a bystander dragged me off and screamed at me, causing a commotion everyone would have seen. In another it was two bystanders who pulled me off. In one it was in the middle of the room, in another a corner, in another against a wall. In one, two hands; in another, one hand. In one she said I came up to her from behind, in another the front.

What exactly was the case that the prosecution was making? The onlooker alleged to have dragged me off took to the witness stand.

Did you drag Mr Holden off and shout or scream at him?

He says he did not.

Did you notice anything happen at all?

He did not.

Then I took the stand for two hours. There was confusion as to what was being alleged when the prosecution QC did not put an allegation to me. The judge intervened and insisted she did so.

The jury looked increasingly shocked that this trial was taking place at all.

The trial continued. The defence read out statements from the party-goers, all of whom I had to track down with my solicitor after the police ignored their evidence. The jury members seemed to be asking each other why the defence had to take these statements, rather than the police.

In statement after statement the people at the party said nothing happened. They said they would have noticed if something had. It was actually a quite dull party, with no loud music and not many people there. Time and time again statements were read out. They said the same thing.

I was bizarrely calm throughout, except when the police officer who investigated gave evidence. How did they let it get this far, when every witness not only failed to back up the allegation, but directly contradicted it? But mainly I was calm. I knew I was innocent, and the prosecution looked more ridiculous with every word each witness said. There was not a jury in the world, surely, who would find the wrong way. Surely.

And so on Friday the jury was sent to begin its deliberations. A few of my friends and family had gathered to be there, but we didn’t know when to expect the result. It could be Tuesday — after the bank holiday — if its members weren’t back by 4pm. My barrister said that even in clear-cut cases the jury usually took a few hours. Charlotte paced up and down the corridor like a caged lion. I made silly jokes to anyone who would listen. My dad just sat there silently. We were all wondering how long it will take — how long we could stand it for.

Ten minutes after the jury members finished their lunch break we were called back into court. My barrister and solicitor both said it was too soon and told me it would just be a note from the jury on a clarification or something. But suddenly it became apparent that it was not a note at all but the verdict.

The jury members traipsed back in — they were chatting lightly together, there was occasional laughter, patting on the back. When they had settled down, the judge peered down at them. She asked them for their verdict.

How do you find the defendant?

Not guilty.

And it ends. After 15 months of waiting. An investigation by the Met’s top team, costing hundreds of hours of police time and tens — if not hundreds — of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money spent by the state on the prosecution.

Tens of thousands of pounds that I don’t have and won’t get back (I may only be able to get about 20% of my legal bills back, and nothing to recover the loss of earnings), including the many hours of my solicitor’s time spent finding evidence the police ignored but that the court clearly considered important — not just reasonable — lines of inquiry.

After two jobs lost, who knows how many opportunities missed, my relationship pushed to breaking point, untold pressure put on my friends and family.

Fifteen months of nights spent awake in bed or roaming the streets late at night, too worried to sleep. Fifteen months of days largely spent sitting on the sofa, too tired, too sad to move.

After all that. Fifteen minutes after lunch and it was all over.

But of course it wasn’t really over. It still isn’t. The past few weeks have felt like coming up, slowly, from a deep sea dive.

I’m very glad that my current employer hired me and kept me for the past few months and through my trial. I owe it a huge amount: I couldn’t have wished for a better, more professional or more reasonable company to work for.

I have been blessed by a supportive family and so many wonderful friends and acquaintances. They have been brilliant. I would not have made it through without them. Their kindnesses — some gargantuan, some small — have kept me together.

The judge’s words at the end, after hearing all the evidence, that “Mr Holden leaves court without a stain on his character and I hope he can pick up his career where it left off” show that my friends and family were right to back me.

But I still want my life back. I want my career back too. I spent my life volunteering and later working for the Conservative Party and working in government. That part of my life has been stalled for more than a year and I hope that I am, once again, able to serve my party and the country I love.

Last week my suspension from the candidates’ list, due to the trial, was lifted — at the first opportunity — and I hope that’s a sign of things to come.

A longer version of this article was published on conservativehome.com

Westminster paedophile ring accuser charged

The accuser who sparked the Metropolitan police’s disastrous Operation Midland inquiry into an alleged Westminster VIP paedophile ring was last week charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, writes James Gillespie.

The witness, known only as “Nick”, will face 13 charges in all including one for fraud for claiming £22,000 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

The Met spent £2.5m and almost 18 months examining Nick’s lurid allegations, in which he named former MPs, ministers, intelligence chiefs and military commanders as having been part of a ring said to have murdered three boys.

Police were accused of failing to look for evidence that contradicted the claims and seemed eager to believe the alleged victim.

One of the murder claims was demonstrably untrue but the police, having declared Nick’s claims to be “credible and true”, pursued the inquiry despite evidence to the contrary.

The allegations led to the police raiding the homes of public figures including the former army chief Lord Bramall, the widow of the late home secretary Leon Brittan, and the former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor.

The Met found no evidence to support Nick’s claims and has since had to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages to people affected.

The decision to prosecute Nick will be another blow to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, which launched an investigation into the Westminster claims at the height of the furore over his allegations.

It also launched an investigation into the late Lord Janner, whom Nick had also accused. The Labour peer’s son, Daniel Janner, a leading QC, has written to the inquiry demanding that it now drop both investigations.