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- Daniel Grigg was cleared of one count of sexual assault at Isleworth Crown Court
- The 37-year-old is the boss of Museum Wines in Tarrant Hinton, Dorset
An award-winning wine importer has been cleared of sexually assaulting an off-duty British Airways hostess, who claimed that he groped her during a 12-hour flight as he boasted ‘I get paid to drink’.
Daniel Grigg was cleared of one count of sexual assault, alleged to have taken place in January last year, at Isleworth Crown Court. The 37-year-old is the boss of Museum Wines in Tarrant Hinton, Dorset.
The shop is a three-time winner of the Decanter Awards Best Specialist Retailer South Africa and the International Wine Challenge South African Specialist of the Year.
The jury previously heard that he had consumed beer, wine and a Bloody Mary cocktail during a business trip to South Africa, and was seated next to the complainant on the flight.
The court heard the complainant’s testimony earlier this week. Speaking behind a screen, she said: ‘I was trying to get some rest and turned my back and I felt a hand tickling me on my leg and thigh.
‘It was the top of my thigh area and then the hand went under my blanket. I did not think it was happening at first.
‘He was tickling and rubbing my leg and then it was like a groping. He knew where his hand wanted to go.’
She told the trial: ‘He was very friendly and chatty and told me he was in the wine industry and that he got paid to drink. He smelled, he smelled of alcohol. He had been drinking a lot of alcohol and his behaviour changed and he was making odd comments.’
Grigg has previously said he had no more than four alcoholic drinks during the flight and his chatting was merely ‘light-hearted and jovial’.
She told the jury earlier this week that the touching was over her clothing, with Grigg’s hand moving below her stomach after tickling her thigh and leg.
‘I went to the galley and I burst into tears,’ she said.
‘He then came to the galley for more alcohol and was told because of the incident he would not be served any more.’
The woman was moved to another seat at the rear of the plane.
Speaking after being cleared, Mr Grigg told MailOnline that he was ‘relieved and delighted’.
‘It’s been 18 months since my first voluntary interview with the police’, he said. ‘It’s been very traumatic for myself and my family.
‘It’s also affected me in the professional sphere, with people I work with in South Africa in the UK seeing that I had been accused of a heinous, abhorrent crime.
‘But after a trial a jury of my peers took less than an hour to find me not guilty.’
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