Devon ex-council leader Brian Greenslade jailed for sex assaults

Brian Greenslade was leader of Devon County Council and a member of the Devon and Cornwall Police Authority

A former Liberal Democrat council leader has been jailed for sexually assaulting three women.

At Exeter Crown Court, former Devon County Council boss Brian Greenslade was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault and one of sexual assault in the 1990s and 2000s.

He said the incidents may have arisen from misunderstandings or accidental contact rather than deliberate actions.

The 72-year-old, from Marwood, near Barnstaple, has been jailed for 16 months.

'Dark side'

Greenslade, who was also a member of the Devon and Cornwall Police Authority, had denied the charges and said none of the separate incidents had happened.

He dismissed one allegation as "absolutely nonsense".

However, jurors believed the victims' testimonies of two assaults while he was on council business and one while he was working as an accountant.

One told how he thrust his hand down her trousers as they left a site visit for a planning application in Mid Devon in the 1990s.

Another said he brushed his hand over her breast while they were both working at an office around the same time.

The women said they did not report the assaults at the time because of Greenslade's positions of power

The last said Greenslade touched her breast after putting his arm around her at County Hall in Exeter in the mid 2000s.

The women all said they did not report the assaults at the time because of his positions of power and influence as a council leader and police authority chairman.

Greenslade said he had no recollection of the alleged encounters but was sure they had never happened.

Carolina Guiloff, defending, told the court Greenslade had misread situations, the incidents had been short-lived and opportunistic, and he was now in poor health.

Sentencing, Judge Timothy Rose told him: "You could be characterised in ordinary language as a sex pest.

"It seems to me that you had a dark side. You won't accept it, but you could not control yourself in the presence of women."

He also put Greenslade on the sex offenders register for 10 years.