A 60-year-old carer has been placed on the sex offender’s register after a game of dares during a hen party “went too far”.
Mum-of-four Angela Cumming thrust her hand into the boxer shorts of a 22-year-old stranger after being dared to “put an ice cube down the front of the nearest man’s trousers”.
Giving evidence during the sexual assault trial at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, her victim described how he was left “shocked, shaken and violated” by her actions.
After hearing from witnesses to the incident at College Bar in Aberdeen, Sheriff Margaret Hodge found Cumming guilty, saying while her actions were not for sexual gratification, they were sexual.
Cumming’s victim, a student, said he had been in the city centre nightspot around 8pm on May 7 last year when his group of 10 friends encountered the female revellers.
‘Her hand went all the way down to my crotch’
He told fiscal depute Alan Townsend how he initially joined in with some of the hen party hijinks, at one point posing for a photo with the group of around a dozen women whilst wearing a silly hat.
However, he said things escalated when a card game involving dares and a bell started being played.
“I was socialising with my friends and the hen party were socialising together when a female came down from the top of the table,” he said. “She had something in her hand, which I later found out was ice.
“She put her hand with the ice in over my right shoulder trapping me in and then proceeded to put her hand down inside my boxers.
“There was a struggle between myself and her. I said ‘stop get off’.
“I felt taken aback and in shock. I struggled because the last thing I wanted was ice inside my boxers. I didn’t want to harm anyone but I wanted to get out of the situation.
“I leaned back and pushed back from the table and found myself on the floor with my knees up trying to protect myself. But she was still hanging over me trying to put this bit of ice down my boxers.
“She persisted to the point where she managed to put her hand inside my boxers down past my groin and drop the ice inside my boxers.
“I felt her hands touch past my genitals. Her hand went all the way down to my crotch.”
CCTV footage was played to the court, which showed Cumming leaving her table, filled with sash-wearing women and a blow-up doll, and acting in the manner described.
‘I felt disturbed and violated’
“One of my friends pulled her off me as I lay on the floor,“ the student added. “I felt shaken, shocked, quite disturbed and violated.”
The man said he approached Cumming before they left the bar to give her a chance to apologise, but when she refused he asked her name – to which he says she replied: “I’m not that f****** stupid”.
He said other members of the hen party did apologise, stating they were “disgusted” by their companion’s actions.
After bouncers gave the man the option to call the police officers attended and later traced Cumming and the hen party at a different bar in the city centre.
During cross-examination from Cumming’s defence agent Alex Burn, the student insisted she was “determined” and the only way he could get her off was by pushing himself away from table and onto the ground.
Mr Burn asked him: “Couldn’t you just swat her away? Tell her ‘beat it I don’t want this’ and push her off? You estimated she’s about 60?”
He later asked the man: “Are you particularly sensitive?”
Another 22-year-old man who witnessed the incident while sitting next to the victim told the court how he initially thought Cumming was trying to pull his “quite distressed” friend’s trousers down and he described how others “scrambled” to help pull her off.
Taking to the stand herself, first offender Cumming gave evidence and stated she doesn’t go out much and had only consumed “five or six drinks max”.
Mr Burn asked her if she thought her victim was taking things in “good spirits” and would perhaps “take it in good spirits”?
Cumming replied “yes” and added: “My intention with the ice cube was just to put it down his trousers or his boxers, the top of his boxers.”
She said she “couldn’t recall” him asking her to stop and questioned whether his struggling was “just him having a bit of banter too”.
‘I thought he was bantering’
She denied her hands were near his genitals and added: “I thought he was bantering. I thought so, but it maybe shouldn’t have continued.
“It was a dare card.”
Fiscal depute Townsend put it to Cumming: “I’m assuming that if the card told you to go and punch someone you wouldn’t go and punch someone.
“I would think, given it was clear there was no consent, you would then have stopped.
“If the boot was on the other foot you would expect him to stop as soon as you said no.”
She agreed – along with Mr Townsend’s further question: “Do you accept you took it too far?”
Sheriff Margaret Hodge – who examined the set of dare cards from the party – was urged by Mr Burn to find his client guilty of a common law assault rather than one of a sexual nature.
‘She basically manhandled him’
However, the sheriff said there was no way it could not be considered sexual.
Delivering her guilty verdict to the charge of sexual assault, Sheriff Hodge said: “She has basically manhandled him. She was determined to get her hands into his underwear or trousers and I don’t think she cared how.
“He was squirming and telling her to stop. It’s difficult for any reasonable person to accept that somebody touching a person’s genitals in a situation like that, when they are determined to get inside a man’s trousers, is not sexual.
“I can accept Mr Burn saying it was not done for sexual gratification but the accused nevertheless touched the complainer sexually.”
She deferred sentence on Cumming, of Station Road, Newmachar, to allow for background reports to be carried out and placed her on the sex offender’s register meantime.
Sheriff Hodge added: “I regret the whole circumstances here and I am sure Ms Cumming does too.”
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