Tory MP’s aide says alleged rape victim gave story

A woman who claims she was raped by a senior Tory MP’s aide at Westminster approached reporters the next day ‘to ensure a sympathetic write-up’, a court heard today.

Samuel Armstrong, 24, allegedly made the woman feel ‘like a hostage’ as he pinned her down on a sofa in his boss’ office in the Palace of Westminster. 

The chief of staff to Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay pounced on the young Westminster worker after she fell asleep following a night drinking in the Houses of Parliament, it is claimed.

Jurors heard Armstrong had a ‘sense of entitlement’ and abused his role by grabbing her hair and raping her a second time whilst calling her a ‘b****’ throughout her ordeal.

CCTV footage showed the alleged victim, who is in her 20s, ‘in distress’ as she ran through the corridors of Westminster at 2am, Southwark Crown Court heard.

She eventually found a cleaner, and sobbed as she clung to him begging for help, jurors were told.

Today jurors heard the woman came up with the story thinking she ‘might be in trouble if security were to come across her’ roaming the halls at 2am without permission.

It was also suggested that she got a friend to speak with a tabloid reporter after Armstrong had been arrested ‘to control the story’.

Defending him, Sarah Forshaw QC asked the woman about a text message she sent her boyfriend just 15 hours after the alleged attack, during the early evening of October 14.

The court heard Armstrong told the woman ‘you want this’ and ‘raped her repeatedly’ on the sofa of the office in the Norman Shaw North building (pictured left) while calling her a ‘b****’ the court heard

The text claimed that it would become front page news.

The woman told jurors she believed by that point the rest of the press already knew of the arrest and she wanted ‘to conceal as much as I could my identity’.

‘You have to understand that Westminster is an incredibly small place and things spread incredibly fast,’ she said.

After denying that she made any direct approaches to the press herself, she claimed ‘it was one of my friends’.

Jurors heard another extract in which the woman claimed that ‘the media already knew’.

‘This is my way of controlling the story, ensuring I get a sympathetic write-up,’ it ended.

The alleged victim told the court: ‘I said before, I really didn’t want my identity to come out.

‘It was a state where I had absolutely no control of the event, so I wanted a little bit of control and it wasn’t actually me who gave it to them.’

Jurors heard the woman also expressed being ‘unhappy’ that the Tory aide had been charged so early.

But she claimed that was simply because she needed ‘more time to think whether I wanted to continue’ with her allegation.

Ms Forshaw also read out part of an exchange in which the woman described wanting to conceal medical records, adding ‘you get more leeway to hide certain aspects and mould what comes out’.

A court heard Armstrong, pictured with former prime minister David Cameron, had drinks with the woman and then ‘abused his position’ to take her to the office where he allegedly attacked her

‘Obviously, when you go to the doctor they say this is completely confidential and my private life – my medical life – was not particularly one I would like to shout from the rooftops,’ she explained.

‘I wanted a bit more time to think.

Armstrong works for Conservative South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay, pictured, and the attack allegedly took place in his office

‘Unfortunately, I didn’t have any more time.’

The barrister had earlier suggested that the woman had got herself ‘in quite a state by the time [she] came across the cleaner’.

It was put to her that she ‘had to explain to security why [she] was there on [her] own at 2am’.

‘So, what you came up with was that you had been there with Samuel Armstrong but he had forced himself on you,’ said Ms Forshaw.

‘And once you had said it and the police were called it was really difficult to go back once you said it.’

Ms Forshaw told the woman that she was not suggesting she ‘deliberately set out to lie to get Sam into trouble’.

‘I suggest that you told a lie at the time and once you told it, you couldn’t take it back,’ she said.

‘You’d be incorrect,’ the woman answered.

Ms Forshaw later asked: ‘You don’t have any animosity to Sam, even now really?’

‘No,’ the complainant said, adding: ‘It is something that I have struggled with in the last year.’

The pair were drinking in the Sports and Social Bar, pictured, earlier in the night before Armstrong ‘took advantage of the woman’

Asked whether she was actually ‘upset’ with Armstrong following what Ms Forshaw described as a consensual sexual encounter, she said: ‘Yes.

‘I was completely confused and devastated in the truest sense of that word.’

Armstrong, of Chelmsford, Essex, denies two counts of rape, one count of assault by penetration and one count of sexual assault.

The trial continues.