A ROYAL Navy chef was yesterday cleared of groping a female sailor’s bum after telling a court martial she was twerking “provocatively”.
Able Seaman Omar Cummings said it was a reflex to shove her backside away as she shook it 12 inches from his face while bent over in front of him.
After the woman got angry with him, he said: “Your bottom was in my face. What did you want me to do?”
She had told the hearing she was just walking past AB Cummings, who was sitting down, when he reached out and poked her bottom with his finger while a group of sailors drank and danced at a party in a warship’s mess.
The woman said she had not been drinking but chef Emron Alexander said he saw her with a cider in her hand and dancing on a table.
Mr Alexander added: “He moved her out of the way as she was in front of him. She was dancing and bent over.”
The sailors were on HMS Albion, the Navy’s flagship at the time, as it returned from overseas.
Prosecutor Graham Coombes said: “She walked across to her friend and as she walked past, he poked one of his fingers into her bottom through her clothes which made her jump.”
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But AB Cummings said: “She was dancing and shaking her bottom. I just shoved it away.”
When questioned, he said he thought the woman was dancing provocatively.
In a statement to police, he described her being bent over so her bottom was about 12 inches in front of his face and said she was drunk.
Later, during a group photo in which he was stood behind her, the court heard he groped her as her boyfriend was stood nearby.
But AB Cummings said others were behind her too and denied he had touched her.
He was cleared at Bulford Military Court, Wilts, of disgraceful conduct of an indecent kind and another charge of sexual assault during the group photograph.
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