Police Officer On Trial For Indecent Assaults

12:00am Saturday 1st January 2000

Surrey's Deputy Chief Constable indecently assaulted two colleagues, believing they would never report him because of his senior position, a court heard this week.

Ian Beckett is accused of kissing and fondling the women in four attacks at the force headquarters in Guildford during December 1998.

In one incident he is alleged to have put his hand up the skirt of a police secretary.

The witness, known as Miss X, told Southwark Crown Court that after being groped by the 54-year-old he wished her "Happy Christmas."

She said she felt powerless to stop the senior policeman's advances because of a vitamin deficiency illness.

Miss X told the court Beckett, who is married, asked her to wear red underwear into work as his "Christmas treat."

The 51-year-old woman said she arrived for work wearing a high necked top, with a blue skirt over a blue blouse, briefs, stockings and a suspender belt.

She said Beckett summoned her into his office, turning on the "engaged light" outside his door .

As she wished him "good morning" he put his arm round her, pinning her arms in front of her.

"He put his hand up my skirt and straight inside my pants. I said "no". He removed his hand and stepped back," she said.

She alleges two weeks earlier Beckett first indecently assaulted her, putting his arms around her after switching the lights off in an office leaving her "very frightened and very angry."

Miss X said it made her feel "vulnerable and worried."

It is alleged that Beckett also twice indecently assaulted another worker in the building.

Miss Y, in her forties, said Beckett put his hand up her skirt.

In another incident, when she was alone in the office with Beckett, she alleged that he kissed her on the lips and put his right hand on her right breast.

The former head of Surrey Police, Ian Blair, now the Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, told the court on Wednesday how Miss X complained that his number two was behaving inappropriately towards her.

He said the 51-year-old married woman approached him just before Christmas 1998.

Beckett of Lyne, Chertsey, denies four charges of indecent assault.

He was suspended from Surrey Police in January last year following the allegations.

The trial continues.