Alex Salmond imitated zombie and tried to kiss SNP worker, court told

Former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond imitated a zombie before kissing and touching a political party worker against her will during a late-night work session at the leader's official residence in 2014, a court heard on Friday.

The high court in Edinburgh was also told that Mr Salmond grabbed a civil servant in his government by the buttock while they were having a photograph taken together at an official event the same year. A third woman who worked with the first minister said it was a "fairly regular occurrence" for him to touch her on the bottom when they were walking together.

Mr Salmond has pleaded not guilty to 14 charges, including attempted rape and other sexual and indecent assaults, against a total of 10 women.

The accounts given by alleged victims on the fifth day of the former first minister’s trial came after previous evidence by other women of late-night incidents at Bute House, his Edinburgh residence, and unwelcome touching at other locations.

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The Scottish National Party worker, who like all the alleged victims cannot be identified for legal reasons, told the court she had been working with then-party leader Mr Salmond late at night at Bute House, in the run-up to the September 14th, 2014, independence referendum.

‘Complete shock’

Mr Salmond had “out of the blue” asked if she had seen a zombie movie, the party worker said.

“He stretched his arms out straight toward me and for a second or two did an impression of a zombie walking toward me,” she said, adding that he then held her by the shoulders, kissed her on the right and left cheeks and leaned in to try to kiss her on the lips. “I was in complete shock” and felt frightened, the woman said.

She denied suggestions from defence lawyer Shelagh McCall that she had drunk more than a couple of sips of whisky with Mr Salmond. She said that when she later told police that she did not feel like she had been a victim of anything, it was because she blamed herself for the incident.

Ms McCall said Mr Salmond denied the zombie incident ever happened.

The civil servant told the court Mr Salmond had insisted on her having her photograph taken with him after a formal dinner shortly before he stood down as first minister in November 2014. “As this was happening, the first minister reached down and grabbed hold of my backside,” she said.

A sequence of images taken by the photographer and shown to the jury showed the civil servant’s eyes closing and a marked change in her expression. Asked by prosecutor Alex Prentice to describe her expression in the later images, the woman said she looked “shocked and embarrassed . . . almost a look of disbelief”.

‘About power’

The civil servant said she had not wanted to cause a scene at the dinner, but had in subsequent days told her manager of the incident.

Defending Mr Salmond, Gordon Jackson said there was not much doubt that he “could be inappropriate on occasion”, but that the civil servant had previously told police she thought the incident was not sexual but “about power”.

“That was my interpretation,” the woman said.

Another civil servant told the court on Friday that Mr Salmond had repeatedly touched her bottom and her hair without her consent. She said he had once stroked her face in a car and later tried to touch her face when in a lift in the presence of a male senior civil service colleague. “I was utterly aghast,” she said.

The male colleague told the court the woman “shrank back” when Mr Salmond reached out to touch her hair or face and that he had tried to brush the then-first minster’s hand away. “I think I said words to the effect of ‘stop that, behave yourself’,” the male colleague told the court.

The trial continues. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2020