CULBRETH: GROPING PRISON GOVERNOR FINED £500

A prison governor who sexually assaulted a scientist on a Tube escalator has been fined.
 
Dale Culbreth, 41, left the doctor of bio chemistry trembling in shock following the attack on his way to nearby Wandsworth prison in south London.
 
She reported the incident at Tooting Bec station to London Underground staff who heard her scream.

Culbreth claimed the woman was mistaken but was found guilty of sexual assault following a trial at Blackfriars Crown Court.
 
Hanna Llewellyn-Waters, prosecuting, said the victim, aged in her late 30’s, was dressed in a short skirt, tights and boots as she travelled south on the Northern Line, at lunchtime, on March 22, last year.
 
She noticed a man waiting at the bottom of the escalator it appeared for her to go in front.
 
Ms Llewellyn-Waters added: ‘Once the escalator was about half way to the top, she felt her skirt move.
 
‘She felt this move because someone, this defendant, was moving it.
 
‘Within seconds, the complainant felt her upper inside right thigh being touched and a cupped hand on her genital area moving backwards towards her buttocks.
 
‘She was scared and shocked by this and she turned to look behind her .
 
‘As she did so, she lost her balance and stumbled backwards.
 
‘She managed to regain her balance by steadying herself on the step of the escalator behind her.
 
‘She screamed at the defendant and recognised him to be the same man that had waited at the bottom of the escalator moments before.
 
‘She told him: ‘Don’t do that.’
 
‘She remembers that he possibly said something along the lines of: ‘Are you ok?’’
 
A member of staff who heard her scream then saw the woman looking ‘visibly upset and distressed’, before taking her to his station supervisor.
 
Culbreth, who was working as a locum prison governor, was arrested after boarding a bus outside the station and looked ‘shocked’.

He said he felt sick to hear he had been accused of a sexual assault.
 
He later described her stumbling in front of him on the moving staircase and denied touching her at all.
 
He explained he had only waited at the bottom of the escalator as being unfamiliar with the area, he was looking for a sign.
 
‘He said that there had been no contact, that his hands were nowhere near her and it was completely untrue that he had run his hand up her skirt,’ said the prosecutor.
 
Culbreth, of Deepdale, Lanehouse Rocks Road, Weymouth, Dorset, denied sexual assault and was convicted.
 
Judge Ian Karsten QC fined him £500 and ordered him to pay £1,265 costs.

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