Barrister cleared of sexually assaulting woman in his chambers
Giving evidence from behind a screen, the woman said she and Di Francesco chatted as they walked to his chambers, but didn’t touch.
‘He leaned in to kiss me, and I had no idea it was coming, it must have been for a second or two, because I was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable.
‘He was significantly bigger than me, I was drunk, I’m very petite, I took several steps back.
‘We carried in talking, and he suggested that we would have a tour of the office – I can’t remember if it was my suggestion or his suggestion.’
The complainant said that once she had been taken up to the conference room she didn’t know how to get out of the building.
‘At that point when we were going to go on the tour I thought we were back into non-flirty territory so I had no reason to think that was untoward.’
‘I was really drunk, really tired, I needed to lie down for 15 minutes because that’s when I felt the room spinning and I didn’t feel like I could stand any longer.’
‘I wanted him to know that the kissing wasn’t going to continue.’
She said she was laying on the floor of the conference room in the foetal position because her head was spinning when Di Francesco pulled down her tights.
‘He asked “are we going to have sex?” – the situation had taken a complete turn from where I thought it was,’ she said.
‘His tone was confrontational, he started to get more aggressive, I was alarmed.’
‘There was no context in relation to him asking that question, I didn’t know how we got to that point.
‘He said “you’ve got a really nice bum” and squeezed it hard – I still hadn’t pulled my tights up fully so I pushed his hand away.
‘He said I was pathetic did being a 24-year-old girl and not having a one night stand – I said one night stands are not what I do.’
She continued: ‘I felt his tone was becoming more aggressive, and I felt that was because I had said no to him.
‘That’s when I started crying and I didn’t really know how to respond to the situation – I told him I had gone through a particularly bad point in my life and I’d had anxiety and depression.’
She said that Di Francesco had taken her to the toilet so that she could be sick, before helping her get her belongings and leaving the building.
The woman did not tell police about the alleged sexual assault until the following Monday.
‘I blamed myself for the fact I hadn’t looked after myself and I had got drunk and it wasn’t until I got more comfortable and I told my mum and my housemates and they said “no, what he did is wrong and alcohol didn’t have anything to do with it”.’
‘It’s taken a very long time to even consider being close to someone again.’
Jennie Dempster, for Di Francesco, asked why she had chosen to go back to his chambers in the middle of the night.
‘Have you ever been back to someone’s offices in the early hours of the morning previously? If you were interested in his job did you not think “that’s a plan for next week? We can do it one evening?”.
‘If you were tired and a bit drunk, why didn’t you say “we can do it find other night”?’
Di Francesco said the woman had asked her to lie on the floor with him and ‘be the big spoon’.
He said she had been showing him pictures of her in a bikini on holiday and had been very flirty with him.
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Giving evidence Di Francesco said the woman teased him, saying he couldn’t be a lawyer because he had gone to Birmingham University.
He said she also showed him pictures of her wearing a bikini.
The barrister said the woman refused to have sex but invited him back to her home in south London at least five times so they could ‘spoon’.
He said she became angry when he refused to go with her.
‘I said ‘I can’t, I live in Harpenden’.
‘She said “you won’t go home because I won’t have sex with you” – she said it in a way that got under my skin.
‘I said “that’s not true, but to be perfectly frank, if that’s not what we’re going to do what’s the point?”
‘It might not have been the most sensitive thing to say.
‘I’m in chambers lying on the floor, she wasn’t aggressive she was just accusatory and it wasn’t nice anymore and I thought “I’ve got to leave”.’
He admitted sliding his hand from her tights to her bottom, but said he pulled away as soon as she told him no.
Di Francesco said he initially thought she was claiming she felt nauseous as a ploy to keep him lying on the floor with her.
Asked what his intentions with the woman were, the lawyer replied : ‘My intentions were to spend more time with her, to see chambers, to talk and to do the things we ultimately did do.
‘It was not my intention to have sex with her, I didn’t know whether we would have sex, I didn’t know how the night would develop but we didn’t go to chambers to have sex.’
He insisted she did not pull away from his kisses, saying: ‘There was no sharp end to the kiss, there was nothing that had made me think that I had overstepped the mark or I had done something that I shouldn’t have.’
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Barrister Alex Di Francesco wept in the dock as District Judge Nicholas Wattam acquitted him of sexual assault after deliberating for just 20 minutes.
Judge Wattam said he was concerned that the woman’s recollection was impaired by the amount of alcohol she had taken that night ‘It’s not in dispute that on the night if 29 January you met the complainant and had a conversation with her for some time.
‘She walked with you to your chambers, she’d had a lot to drink that evening and she was quite drunk.
‘However she didn’t appear visibly drunk at that stage and she says she was aware of what was going on, she felt safe and she trusted you.
‘I accept you were not drunk, I note that you say you made a misjudgement in taking the defendant to chambers that night and I do not disagree.’
He continued: ‘The defendant is a man of good character – whilst the complainant gave her evidence fairly, I’m concerned that her recollection is impaired by the amount of alcohol she had drunk that evening.
‘The defendant gave his evidence without exaggeration and his account stood up to cross examination.
‘I accept that one thing led naturally to another, and when the complainant gave the clear impression that he had overstepped the mark, Mr Di Francesco immediately stopped what he was doing.
‘Up until that point he didn’t know that what he was doing may not have been with consent, therefore I find him not guilty.’
Since the police opened their investigation, Di Francesco has been barred from defending sexual assault cases.
He had also ceased practicing since he was formerly charged at the end of May.
Di Francesco, of Twenty Acre Cottage, London Road, Flamstead, Herts, was cleared of sexual assault.
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