A receptionist at a celebrity club sobbed: ‘I hate him, hate him, hate him,’ as she told how she was raped by one of venue’s founders.
Billy Brannigan, 61, who ran the exclusive Cobden Club, allegedly assaulted the woman with then head chef Chris Agathocleous, 55, after she passed out in a seedy hotel room in 1997.
The woman claims she awoke to find Brannigan and Agathocleous on top of her before freeing herself and fleeing naked into the street.
She reported the assault the next day to the club’s managing director Luke Johnson, then chairman of Pizza Express, Southwark Crown Court has heard.
He offered her vouchers for the restaurant chain in compensation, jurors heard.
Billy Brannigan, 61, (pictured) who ran the exclusive Cobden Club, allegedly assaulted the woman with then head chef Chris Agathocleous, 55, after she passed out in a seedy hotel room in 1997.
The woman claims she awoke to find Agathocleous (pictured) and Brannigan on top of her before freeing herself and fleeing naked into the street. She reported the alleged assault the next day to the club’s managing director Luke Johnson, then chairman of Pizza Express, Southwark Crown Court was told. Jurors heard he offered her vouchers for the restaurant chain in compensation
The woman was in her early 20s and had just finished university when she was offered a glamorous front-of-house job at the Cobden Club in 1997.
Josh Astor, 56, who was a director, board member and an investor in the Cobden Club, told the court that the alleged victim said she ‘hated Billy Brannigan’, and went on to tell him that he had gang raped her with another man.
He said: ‘We touched on the subject of the Cobden Club. I mentioned Billy Brannigan and she ‘I hate him, hate him, hate him’, and burst into tears.’
‘You said it was a howl of distress?’, asked prosecutor Mary Prior.
‘It was a real explosion of feeling.’
Mr Astor was asked if the woman had ever said anything negative about Brannigan.
‘Not at all, I thought they were friends,’ he said.
‘I was astonished’
‘She said that, with another man, he gang raped her.’
‘She was in floods of tears’
He told her that she could not go back into the office and pretend that nothing had happened.
‘I said: ‘You can’t go back into the office.’
Mr Astor said that he contacted the directors, and she had a meeting with Johnson.
‘She was reluctant, she was quite scared she wouldn’t get a sympathetic reception.’
He said that he encouraged her to report the incident to the police, but that she did not want to.
When cross-examined by Felicia Davy, Brannigan’s defence barrister, Astor accepted that he did not see eye to eye with Brannigan.
He admitted that he had taken drugs in the 1990’s, but insisted that Brannigan had as well.
Asked if he had a ‘serious’ problem with Class A drugs he replied: ‘It depends what you mean by serious. I did take them but it was the 1990’s, everyone took them including Brannigan.
The court heard that Astor had past convictions for possessing Class A drugs in the 1990’s.
Mr Astor rejected any suggestion that he had encouraged the woman to make a complaint against Brannigan because of tensions over his drug use.
‘You wanted to take Class A drugs and that caused problems for Mr Brannigan as licensee,’ Ms Davy said.
‘No, that is not true’
‘That was your source of animosity towards him’
‘Absolutely not, I just didn’t like him’
‘Were you only too keen to encourage [the alleged victim] to make a complaint against Mr Brannigan?’
‘Given what she had described to me I did not see how she could go back to working under him as if nothing had happened.’
Brannigan was dismissed from the club.
The Cobden Club (pictured) opened in Notting Hill, in 1996. Members included author Will Self and Mariella Frostrup, while the late Amy Winehouse sang there early in her career. The Cobden was founded by Brannigan and was once popular with stars including Kate Moss and Jade Jagger. It closed in 2010
Earlier the woman told jurors how one night she finished work and had drinks with Brannigan and Agathocleous.
They ended up at a hotel in Paddington where they shared a bottle of vodka, the court has heard.
They shared a bottle of vodka and the woman claims she was attacked after she passed out and got into a single bed.
The alleged victim said she finally had the courage to report the alleged assault after confiding in a new boyfriend about it in 2020.
Giving evidence the woman said her boyfriend was ‘very upset’ when she told him she had been raped and he threatened to kill Brannigan with a gun.
Felicia Davy, defending Brannigan, asked: ‘Do you remember telling the police he went crazy?’
She replied: ‘He was very upset.
‘I think he put me to bed and went straight off.’
Ms Davy asked the woman why she did not call police from the hotel.
She was asked why she complained to Mr Johnson, rather than calling police from the hotel.
‘I was terrified. I was frightened, I didn’t know what to do. Obviously that was my solution.’
She admitted he had recorded a telephone conversation with her boyfriend without his knowledge in December 2022 in which she asked him to talk about what had happened.
The woman said her partner had just come out of prison and did not want to be involved with the police in any way.
She said it was the first time she had spoken to him in 20 years.
‘I wanted him to tell the truth.
‘I wanted him to tell the police what had happened.’
Ms Davy asked: ‘Did you prompt him to say what you wanted him to say?’
The woman replied: ‘No.’
Ms Davy asked her why she reported the incident over 20 years later, adding there would have been CCTV and forensics available at the time that could have helped in the investigation.
The woman added: ‘I am aware that I have made things harder for myself by reporting it 20 years later.’
Ms Davy said: ‘There was no sexual activity, no sexual intercourse whatsoever in that hotel room was there?’
The woman replied: ‘That is completely untrue, I was raped by Mr Brannigan.’
She was asked how she reacted to being offered Pizza Express vouchers by Mr Johnson as compensation, and to what value they were.
The woman replied: ‘I don’t know, it was a ridiculous thing to do’.
The Cobden Club opened in Notting Hill, in 1996.
Members included author Will Self and Mariella Frostrup while the late Amy Winehouse sang there early in her career.
The Cobden was founded by Brannigan and was once popular with stars including Kate Moss and Jade Jagger. It closed in 2010.
Brannigan, of Notting Hill, and Agathocleous, of Crouch End, both deny one charge of rape.
The trial continues.