Dave Lee Travis ‘groped woman at BA party’

AN alleged victim of veteran DJ Dave Lee Travis has told a court that he told her she had “won the key” to his hotel room after he groped her during a dance at a corporate event.

DJ Dave Lee Travis at Southwark Crown Court. Picture: PA

The woman, who was 23 at the time, said the former Radio 1 presenter also put his hand inside her knickers during a British Airways Christmas party.

The alleged victim told London’s Southwark Crown Court that she met Travis, 68, on two occasions when she worked at BA and he was acting as a compere at company events in 1993.

Both times she said he grabbed her to dance the Lambada with her, “grinding” against her and becoming aroused.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said that, after being forced to dance with him on the second occasion, she planned to make her “escape” but he then made her sit on his knee.

She told jurors she thought she would just sit next to him before politely making her excuses and leaving as there were a number of BA bosses at the table and she did not want to make a scene.

But she said he pulled her on to his knee and placed his right arm around her waist while putting his left hand on her upper thigh, adding: “His left hand started creeping up my leg.”

The woman said she decided to try to distract Travis by talking about the raffle that had taken place as part of the evening’s events as there was a ticket lying on the table in front of them.

“I said to him I hadn’t won anything. That’s when he slapped it on his head and said ‘You’ve won the key to my room’.”

The woman said she was “really scared” and when she said she wanted to go to the toilet with a colleague, he told her: “Don’t confer with your friends.”

“He said ‘There’s a toilet at my hotel’.”

‘DLT a ‘dirty perv’’, court told

The alleged victim said she thought Travis was a “dirty perv” and a “dirty old man” but did not go to police at the time as she was “too young and too stupid”.

Travis is charged with 13 counts of indecent assault dating back to 1973 and as recently as 2003. He is also accused of sexual assault in 2008. He denies all the charges.

The woman told the court she first met Travis a few weeks before the Christmas party when he compered an event to celebrate hitting company targets, and that he organised a Lambada dance competition, which he judged and she and her partner won.

The woman said there was a “Latin American atmosphere” in the room as they performed the intimate dance which involved couples getting up close and holding hands.

She said that, after naming her as the winner, he ordered that the song be repeated and “then he grabbed me as his partner and started dancing with me”.

The woman told the court that he “kept pinning me against his leg” as they danced.

“He was sexually aroused,” she said.

“I was trying to put as much distance between us as could as I thought it was inappropriate but he was a lot bigger than me and he kept pinning me against his leg.

“He was old enough to be my father. I just thought ‘dirty perv’.”

Asked why she did not tell her bosses or police what had happened at the time, the woman said: “He was a big star. I thought ‘Who was going to believe me?’”

‘Beeline’

The woman said she then encountered Travis again when he was the compere and DJ at the Christmas party and did her best to avoid him but she said she realised he had seen her and he requested that guests dance the Lambada.

She told jurors: “Dave Lee Travis made a beeline for me and said he was claiming this dance as his again. Everybody was cheering.”

The woman said that, as before, Travis groped her as they danced. “He was grinding as he was dancing with me,” she said.

A friend of the alleged victim also gave evidence to the court and said she told them what Travis allegedly did to her during conversations they had in September or October 2012.

Another woman told the court she thought Travis was a “dirty old man” after he put his hand up her skirt during a car journey when she was 21.

The woman, who was sharing a lift with Travis and her friend after he was the DJ at a party, said she was “absolutely shocked and mortified”. She thought it happened in 1983.

She told the court that Travis asked her what she did and, when she said she was a student nurse, he asked if she wore stockings.

She said she was embarrassed by the question and could not remember what she replied, but he then “put his hand into the back of the car and pushed it up my skirt”.

The woman said she went to police last year after reading a newspaper article in which he defended himself after other allegations against him surfaced.