'He knew it would be my word against his'
A former office clerk was pushed onto a bed and pinned down by his manager before being sexually assaulted, he told a court yesterday.Mr X, 21, who claims the older man attacked him repeatedly between February and June 2009, said the alleged incident was “one that I won’t never forget” because his boss was more aggressive than before.“He had been using more manpower, like using all his power. He had never pushed me before. He used his force to hold me down onto the bed.”Mr X was giving evidence at the Magistrates’ Court trial of Mr Y, 58, who denies ten counts of sexual assault. Neither man can be identified for legal reasons.The alleged victim said the bed incident happened on June 11, 2009. He had accompanied his boss general manager at the office where he worked to a guesthouse to look at rooms for “some new project that was coming in from overseas”.He said Mr Y pushed him onto his back on a bed in one of the rooms and he thought: “Enough was enough.”The accused dropped to his knees, he said, and “put both his forearms and all his body weight on top of my hands, which were already on top of my lap”.He went on: “Then he removed his right hand and started to unbuckle my belt.”Mr X said Mr Y fondled his genitals and he shouted for him to stop but the accused “kept doing it while he smiled at me”.“He did eventually stop when he heard a knock on the door,” he said. “He jumped up.”Later, describing how the alleged assaults made him want to “kill” his manager, he said: “I believe that had it not been for the knock on the door one of us would be here today and one of us would not.”Mr X said he stayed away from work after the incident until June 16. He went in that day planning to quit but got a text from the defendant at lunchtime, which read: “I haven’t seen you at work today but there is no need for you to return.”Mr X went to see a female supervisor and, after she spoke to another manager, he was told he was being put on paid leave pending an investigation.Earlier, the trial heard about an April 9 incident, when Mr X said his manager grabbed his belt and he thought: “Here we go again.”Mr X claimed he was touched without his permission and stormed out of Mr Y’s office and the building.“By that time, I was fed up,” he said. “I nearly felt like going to look for [Mr Y] and take matters into my own hands but once again I held myself back from doing so.“He knew my whole background and knew I had just been released from Westgate. He knew I was on probation. He knew I was trying to turn my life around.“He knew that if I did react to his actions of what he was doing to me it would just be, once again, my word against his.”Mr X, who told the trial he found accommodation with the help of his employers, alleged that on April 21 his boss used a key to get into his room and sexually assaulted him.“That weekend I thought to myself I no longer feel safe. I didn’t feel safe at nights, I didn’t feel safe on the weekends. So I packed a couple of things and went to stay with my girlfriend.”The case continues.