{"id":198216,"date":"2019-11-21T19:01:34","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T19:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=198216"},"modified":"2019-11-25T07:25:01","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T07:25:01","slug":"alex-salmond-appears-in-court-accused-of-14-sex-offences-against-10-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=198216","title":{"rendered":"Alex Salmond appears in court accused of 14 sex offences against 10 women"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester Evening Post \u2013 Nov 21, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Alex Salmond with Ruport Murdoch (left) pictured at a rally during the the Scottish Independence campaign. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Alex Salmond has pleaded not guilty to 14 sex offence charges, including the attempted rape of a woman during the Scottish independence referendum campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

The former first minister of Scotland appeared at the High Court in Edinburgh<\/strong><\/span><\/a> today to face allegations of 14 offences against 10 women.<\/span><\/p>\n

He denies all the allegations.<\/span><\/p>\n

The charges include one of attempted rape, 11 of sexual assault – including one with intent to rape – and two of indecent assault.<\/span><\/p>\n

They span a period between June 29, 2008, and November 11, 2014, with one sexual assault alleged to have taken place in the month of the historic independence referendum.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 64-year-old is accused of attempting to rape a woman at Bute House, the official residence of the first minister in Edinburgh, in June 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

The indictment alleges that he placed her legs over his, repeatedly kissed her face and neck, groped her, then blocked her path.<\/span><\/p>\n

Salmond is then said to have pinned her against a wall, pulled at her clothes and stripped himself naked before trying to rape her on a bed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The former MP<\/a> is also accused of sexually assaulting a woman with intent to rape in December 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n

He is alleged to have forced a woman to lie on his bed then pulled up her dress with intent to rape her.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both incidents were said to have taken place between the date of the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012 and the day of the independence vote in September 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first of the charges involved incidents where Salmond allegedly indecently assaulted a woman by kissing her mouth and groping her on various occasions around Glasgow<\/a> between June 29, 2008, and July 24, 2008.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is also alleged he sexually assaulted a woman on various occasions between May 2011 and June 2013 at the Scottish Parliament, Bute House and elsewhere by touching her bottom and stroking other parts of her body.<\/span><\/p>\n

Salmond – who was Scotland’s first minister from 2007 to 2014 – is also accused of taking off a woman’s shoe and trying to kiss her foot in October 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n

The indictment states that in September 2014, Salmond grabbed a woman by her shoulders at Bute House, repeatedly kissed her face, tried to kiss her lips and touched her leg and face.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several charges involved the accused allegedly groping women, including one incident at the Ubiquitous Chip restaurant in Glasgow in March 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gordon Jackson QC, representing Salmond, said his client denied the allegations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Judge Lady Dorrian continued the preliminary hearing until January 22 and set a trial date for March 9, which is expected to last four weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking outside court after the hearing, Salmond said he would defend himself “vigorously” during the trial.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I’m not permitted to say too much today save that we’ve launched our defence statement with the court,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The incidents are alleged to have occurred while Salmond was first minister. While the attempted rape is alleged to have happened during the independence referendum <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":103939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Behind_The_News","category-historic-sexual-abuse"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=198216"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198220,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198216\/revisions\/198220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/103939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}