{"id":693114,"date":"2026-07-15T14:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/693114\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T14:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:29:14","slug":"suffolk-mp-patrick-spencer-had-moment-of-stupidity-trial-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/693114\/","title":{"rendered":"Suffolk MP Patrick Spencer had &#8216;moment of stupidity&#8217;, trial hears"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When starting his evidence in court, Spencer told jurors that on the day of the incident he had lunch with his father, the billionaire Conservative donor Lord Michael Spencer, before watching England play Wales at rugby at Twickenham.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His barrister Eleanor Laws KC asked him: &#8220;Did you deliberately place your hands on either woman? Did you intend to sexual assault anyone?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Spencer answered &#8220;no&#8221; to both questions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He told the court he drank wine at lunch and beers at the rugby, and assessed himself as &#8220;pissed&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When I walked into the Groucho, I was fine, in high spirits, merry, but not out of control,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He told the court he took a rickshaw home after being ejected from the club, but did not know at the time why he had been told to leave.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was bizarre, surprising,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I assumed I was being loud, clottish, knocked over someone&#8217;s glass or had bumped into somebody \u2013 that&#8217;s what I quickly assumed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said he returned to the Groucho the following week for a 70th birthday celebration for his aunt, and collected the jacket he had left behind on the night he was ejected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The trial continues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Do you have a story suggestion for Suffolk? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When starting his evidence in court, Spencer told jurors that on the day of the incident he had&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-693114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}