A managing director who sexually harassed his 26-y

A managing director who sexually harassed his 26-year-old
secretary faces a jail sentence after being found guilty today
(Monday) of indecent assault.

Judge Jonathan Van Der Werff adjourned sentencing
52-year-old accountant Leslie Sequeira for the preparation of
a report but told the married father he would probably be
sent to jail.

‘A sentence of imprisonment is what I have in mind,’ the
judge said.

‘The only question is how long it should be.

‘
Sequeira, of Court Lane in the exclusive Dulwich Village,
se London, was granted bail on a pnds stlng 10,000 surety.

His wife, Diana, and 21-year-old son sat calmly in
the public gallery when the jury’s unanimous verdicts were
announced.

Sequeira, the managing director of his accountancy firm
Leslie J.

Sequeira and Co.

, of Magnum House, Half Moon Lane,
Dulwich, sat passively in the dock and showed no emotion when
convicted.

He was found guilty of two charges of indecently assaulting
his 26-year-old personal assistant, from Gillingham, Kent, between
February 3 and July 15, 1993.

And it was revealed after the jury returned their guilty
verdicts that Sequeira was convicted in 1972 for making indecent
and obscene telephone calls.

He was fined pnds stlng 20.

The Indian-born-and-educated man moved to England with his
wife of an arranged marriage in 1957.

He qualified as a magistrate for Greenwich and Woolwich
Magistrates Court but was barred from sitting after authorities
learned of his previous conviction which he had not declared.

He claimed to police that he was a governor of Durham
University, a Freeman of the City of London for his community work,
and a board member of a top Catholic organisation called the
Catenian Society, whose board also includes the Duke of Norfolk.

His wife is believed to be a Lloyds name.

The secretary, who cannot be identified for legal reasons,
told the trial Sequeira sexually harassed her at least five times a
day nearly every day from the moment she started working for
his firm the job in early February, 1993, until she walked out
five months later on July 15.

He constantly patted and pinched the slim brunette’s bottom,
blew kisses to her from his desk, brushed his hand against her
breasts, stroked her hair and kissed the side of her head.

The first indecent assault related to an occasion when he
crept up from behind and grabbed her breast while she was using a
photo-copying machine in an upstairs room.

She pushed his hand away and told him to ‘get off’ but he
just laughed.

During the second incident when the victim was recovering
from a fainting spell he groped her left breast while helping her
to her feet.

‘Even though I was feeling faint I know when my breast
is being grabbed,’ she had told the court.

During another incident, Sequeira molested the girl in full
view of his wife, Diana, who also works in the office.

Miss X told the jury: ‘His wife was sitting at her desk.

There
is a printer in front of her and I bent over to get some paper.

‘He came out of his office and slapped me on the backside as
he walked passed.

‘I was speechless.

I was waiting for World War Three to break
out but his wife didn’t say anything.

‘
Miss X recorded some of his indecent comments on a pocket tape
recorder hidden inside her jacket.

Although the micro-tape had since been lost, the trial
heard that it recorded him asking Miss X for a photograph of her
wearing a bikini.

He also told her he had been thinking about her while
taking a shower that morning.

When Miss X complained to him, he snapped at her: ‘Who’s
paying your salary? Whose PA are you?’
Sequeira bought her gifts of chocolates, a bottle of
whisky, and a sweater and even loaned her pnds stlng 2500 to help
pay off her debts.

She was told she could repay the money at her
convenience.

Other employees in the office received no such favour, the
jury heard.

Trainee accountant, Hasan Mahmood, who claimed he was sacked
by Sequeira after seeing the defendant molest Miss X, said he was
a ‘cruel and callous’ boss.

‘One of the guys in the office is a really nice fellow
and even he said to me once, ‘If Mr Sequeira got run over by a
bus I wouldn’t think twice’,’ Mr Mahmood said.

Miss X wrote a letter to Sequeira on June 29, 1993, saying
his behaviour was ‘unbearable and totally unacceptable’.

Frustrated and demoralised by his refusal to control himself,
she took herself to the local Magistrates court on the morning
of July 15, 1993, instead of going to work.

When she explained her story to the magistrate he advised her
that the allegations were of a crimnal nature and she should go
to the police.

The police became involved and arrested Sequeira a week later.

The defendant claimed he never touched the girl and that she
was blackmailing him for pds stlng 13,500.

But his claims were discovered to be unfounded.

The jury also heard that Sequeira was running his firm
‘illegally’ and ‘ripping off his clients’ by posing as a chartered
accountant when in fact he was not chartered.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants investigated Sequeira
and his business and upheld the complaints, the court heard.

Sequeira and the firm faces disciplinary action.

The Inland Revenue and Customs have also been notified
of alleged illegalities.

ends

Sequeira is to be sentenced on April 30, 1993, at Inner London Crown
Court.