Military boss ‘slapped woman’s bottom and dismissed it as banter’

A military contractor accused of sexually assaulting a woman by slapping her on the bottom at a Royal Navy charity fundraiser dismissed the incident as “banter”, a court heard.

Mark Forsyth, 58, laughed after the alleged attack at Admiralty House in Whitehall, telling police he often gave female friends a “slap on the bottom”.

Southwark crown court heard that Forsyth, who runs his own consultancy, was admonished by a friend when he was seen groping a waitress earlier in the evening. When confronted again for slapping the alleged victim’s bottom, he said: “It’s fine, she’s ex-Forces. It’s banter,” jurors heard.

Prosecutor Paul Casey said: “It seems he did something similar earlier on when he touched the backside of a waitress and his friend told him he couldn’t behave like that. He did something foolish in drink once and went and did it again.”

Forsyth is not facing a charge over the incident with the waitress.

The court heard he had been drinking beer and wine at the fundraiser on February 18 last year, for the National Museum of the Royal Navy, and approached the alleged victim near the entrance of Admiralty House.

“I felt a large hit on my left buttock,” the woman said. “I turned and looked at him in shock and said: ‘What are you doing?’

“His business friend said: ‘What the f*** are you doing? You can’t keep doing this.’ Mr Forsyth laughed and lit up a cigarette outside and then tried to come back in, but his friend took him away.”

The woman said Forsyth had approached her earlier and asked about her former career in the Navy, and said he was “friendly and not aggressive, and made a couple of jokes”.

“The fact I was ex-Forces is invalid,” she added. “(The slap) was such a force and it did sting afterwards, he had no right to touch me.”

After the alleged attack, Forsyth, who used to be a Conservative councillor, told police: “I normally greet my female friends with a kiss and a hug and when leaving them I probably give them a slap on the bottom.”

Forsyth, from Bristol, denies sexual assault. The trial continues.