Policewoman 'Groped' By Cambridge Don

Thu, April 20, 2006

Source: Guardian Unlimited

A policewoman today told how the former vice-master of a Cambridge college 'groped' her while making a 'pervy Benny Hill noise' after inviting her to his room for gin and tonics.

The woman, who cannot be named, told Cambridge crown court yesterday she used a police self-defence technique to fend off Peter Hutchinson, who is deputy head of the university's German department, after he attacked her in his room at Trinity Hall in October 2005.

Dr Hutchinson, who denies sexual assault, taught the woman when she was a Cambridge student and stayed in contact after she left to join the police, jurors heard.

Prosecutor Christopher Morgan told the court that Dr Hutchinson and the woman, who was 24 at the time of the alleged attack, had swapped a series of emails prior to the meeting.

In one Dr Hutchinson had written: "Just go a bit weak at the knees with blondes with a certain colour of eye who are just wonderful people as well." In another he had written: "When you see me don't wear anything provocative."

The woman, who was off duty at the time of the alleged assault, said she regarded her relationship with Dr Hutchinson as "amicable and matey", but didn't like some of the contents of his emails.

But she said she had not thought that anything was going to happen when she visited him in his room.

She told jurors that she had been seated on a sofa in Dr Hutchinson's room when he asked her to look at a mouse mat that had been given to him as a present. "I was looking at the mouse mat and staring at the computer and I felt him stand behind me slightly to my right. Then he just grabbed my right buttock and gave this sort of pervy groaning sound. It was horrible. I would describe it as a pervy Benny Hill noise," she said.

She said she moved away from Dr Hutchinson and sat on the sofa again. But Dr Hutchinson then twice ran his fingers through her hair and attempted to kiss her.

She said she pushed him away using her forearm and threatened to hit him. "I gave him a massive big push," she told the jury of five men and seven women.

"They (the police) teach you in training school to use your forearm as a kind of baton. "I fended him off with my arm against his throat."

She added: "He looked shocked. It was pathetic. Absurd. I said something like, 'What the fuck are you doing? I will hit you'."

She said she then left the room and made a statement to police the following day.

The trial continues.

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