|
|
 |
| |
Cyclist ‘hugger’ faces jail
A BUSINESSMAN’S encounter with a cyclist landed him in the dock of the Old Bailey.
Raging toothache and a gum infection led powerfully-built 40-year-old Stephen Howlett to take extra strong painkillers.
At lunchtime on August 22 last year, he added whiskey and beer to ease the agony.
But when rugby player Howlett, of Camden Road, Camden Town, left the bar he ran into trouble.
A jury heard this week that he approached a 26-year-old Highgate woman who was chaining her cycle up outside The Holloway pub at the corner of Camden Road and Holloway Road that afternoon.
Prosecutor David Radcliffe told the court: “She felt his two arms wrapped around her tightly. She was making a phone call at the time. As he pulled her towards him, she felt he was sexually aroused.”
The woman, who cannot be named, insisted that Howlett placed both hands on her breasts.
The six-foot-one defendant denied any wrongdoing during a three day trial.
But the jury convicted him of sexual assault. However, they cleared him, after watching CCTV of the incident, of assaulting Islington traffic warden Harris Golap.
Mr Golap, called by the woman victim to intervene and help her, said Howlett aimed punches at him and he responded by kicking him between the legs.
Two plainclothes police officers, Simon Hackworth and George Thompson, arrived at the ugly scene, brought Howlett to the ground, handcuffed him and deposited him in a police cell.
Howlett told the court that he had been to a rugby do the night before with friends and had a hangover. Then he developed horrific tooth pain and visited a local pub. He denied attacking the warden – “I thought he was a nutter” – and said he was defending himself. He also said: “I don’t recall grabbing anyone’s boobs.”
He added: “I’m not an aggressive man. I’m a friendly, peace-loving chap. I don’t see any reason to go about hugging strangers.”
Following the jury’s verdicts, he now faces a jail term.
Judge Richard Hayward remanded him on bail for sentence on March 2.
|
 |
|
|
|
