Paul Gascoigne cleared of sexual assault

Former England footballer Paul Gascoigne has been found not guilty of sexually assaulting a woman on a train.

The 52-year-old was arrested at Durham railway station on 20 August last year after being accused of “forcefully and sloppily” kissing a female passenger on a service from York to Newcastle.

Gascoigne wept in the dock upon hearing the verdict, which was greeted with cheers of “yes” from supporters in the public gallery, the BBC reports.

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The jury at Teesside Crown Court is still considering a lesser charge of assault by beating.

What happened on the train?

Gascoigne, who played for clubs including Newcastle United, Spurs and Everton as well as winning 57 England caps, had been accused of kissing a woman without her consent during a journey from York to Newcastle, reports The Times.

The woman, who cannot be identified, said she had not recognised the ex-footballer but that he “seemed drunk”. There were “lots of drinks cans and food on the floor and food smeared on his face”, she added.

Jurors heard the alleged victim had tried to move away from Gascoigne, who now lives in Leicester, after he attempted to sit on her lap and then he tapped her arm.

Speaking from behind a screen, she said: “I turned around to face him and he grabbed my face, kissed my face on the lips and I was taken aback because it just came completely out of the blue. When I realised what happened, I pushed him off and said: ‘That’s not OK – get off.’”

The woman described the kiss as “sloppy” and “very full on the lips”, reports The Guardian. The Daily Mail adds that a fellow train passenger claims to have confronted the football star, telling him: “What you have just done is sexual abuse.”

Prosecutor William Mousley QC told the court that Gascoigne knew what police were calling about when officers contacted him hours later. “He told them, in his words: ‘I have kissed a fat lass’,” Mousley said.

During a police interview the following morning, Gascoigne claimed he had given the woman a “peck on the lips to reassure her as he felt sorry for her” because she was being verbally abused about her weight.

Mousley said this was a lie and that Gascoigne was unwilling to “face up to his guilt”.

“He denied the suggestion he had tried to sit on her and said if his behaviour was sexual harassment then he had been a victim himself for some 20 years or more every time he had been kissed,” said the prosecutor.

At an earlier hearing, Gascoigne’s defence lawyer claimed that he had a propensity to kiss people “in a non-sexual manner” and that the outcome of the trial would come down to “whether the kissing was sexual”.

What next?

The jury has found Gascoigne innocent of sexual assault but is still considering the charge of assault by beating.

Judge Peter Armstrong told the jury he was willing to accept a majority verdict on the charge, reports the BBC.

He said that “assault by beating” is committed if the defendant “intentionally applies unlawful force to another who does not consent to it”