Scottish aristocrat ‘raped woman during his cocaine-fuelled 36th birthday party’

A Scottish aristocrat sexually assaulted a woman during a drug-fuelled birthday party at his stately home, a court was told yesterday.

Euan Tennant, 39, is said to have attacked the woman as the couple lay in bed with a second woman at Glen House, near Innerleithen, Peeblesshire.

The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told a jury at Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday how a naked Tennant began stroking her leg before sexually abusing her. He denies the alleged sexual assault – and claims the contact between the two was consensual.

The woman, in her 20s, made her statement behind a screen. She said she was invited by a friend to attend a two-day event to celebrate Tennant’s 36th birthday. Her friend had been close with the aristocrat since university, but she had never met him before. She shared how the two women retreated to their master bedroom with Tennant on the second night. The three talked for about 90 minutes, and Tennant and the other woman did copious amounts of cocaine.

Euan Tennant, 39, is said to have attacked the woman as the couple lay in bed with a second woman at Glen House, near Innerleithen, Peeblesshire

Tennant asked if he could spend the night initially sleeping on the covers of the “huge four-poster bed,” but later taking off his pants and getting in bed next to her.

The woman said she “felt safe that he wasn’t going to do anything”. She told the jury: “I was confronted [my friend] almost in fetal position. Within a few minutes of turning off the light, I could feel Euan’s finger touching and stroking my knee.

“I didn’t do anything hoping that he would stop and take his hands away.”

Then he moved his hand to her leg. She added, “I was just like, ‘What the hell is he doing?’. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to [my friend] to know what he was doing. It was quite an intimate touch. I was as still as possible and wanted to pretend to sleep hoping he would stop, but he didn’t.’

The woman claimed he then touched her intimately over her underwear. She was “frozen” with fear.

Her friend woke up and went to the bathroom, leaving the two of them alone. She said Tennant told her, “I’m sorry if I offended you.” The attack continued after her friend went back to sleep.

The woman claimed she later fled the bedroom in tears and subsequently told her friend what had happened. The couple left the 20-bedroom 19th-century mansion in a taxi later that morning and contacted police.

Questioned by Tennant’s defense attorney, Victoria Young, the woman strenuously denied that she had consented to being sexually touched during the July 27, 2019 incident.

The trial before Sheriff Kenneth Campbell, QC, continues.

Tennant, who says he is an electrician and lives on the Glen estate, inherited the mansion in July 2018.