A Scots aristocrat has been cleared of sexually assaulting a guest at a birthday bash held at his family’s 22-bedroom mansion after a not proven verdict.
Euan Tennant, 39, was on trial accused of the alleged attack on a woman in her mid-20s in a “huge” four poster bed.
The woman told how she was sharing the bed with a female pal when they gave permission to Tennant to sleep beside them.
She said Tennant ran his hand up her leg, leaving her “frozen”, before sexually assaulting her.
Giving evidence on Wednesday, Tennant said he believed the woman had given her consent.
The jury at Edinburgh Sheriff Court returned a not proven verdict by majority on Thursday afternoon.
Tennant, whose grandparents were confidantes of Princess Margaret, the Queen’s late sister, walked free from the dock in visible relief.
Asked to comment on the verdict outside the courtroom, Tennant said: “I hope everyone can move on with their lives in a meaningful and fulfilling way.”
Tennant had denied a charge of sexual assault and lodged a special defence of consent.
His accuser told the court on Tuesday how she, her pal and Tennant had chatted about consent in sexual matters at Glen House, near Innerleithen, in the Scottish Borders.
The woman, who had a boyfriend, said Tennant and her pal snorted cocaine, but she didn’t have any, and they were “chatting and having a nice time”.
She told how she’d been invited to a two-night stay at Glen House to celebrate Tennant’s birthday by a mutual friend.
They gave permission for Tennant to get on the bed as they talked for around 90 minutes, the court heard, and Tennant asked if he could sleep there over the covers.
The woman said: “We didn’t see any problem with that. We’d had these conversations about consent. I considered myself safe around him.”
Tennant asked if he could “take his trousers off and get under the covers”, she said, and they “both said yes”.
After the lights were off and her pal was asleep, she described feeling Tennant “stroking my knee” then touching her thigh for a number of minutes before he sexually assaulted her.
She said: “I was thinking, what the hell is he doing? I didn’t want to say or do anything because I didn’t want (my friend) to know what he was doing to me.”
She said she was “frozen” and lay still, hoping he would stop.
The woman jumped up when he pal went to the bathroom, the court heard, and was crying quietly. She said Tennant told her, ‘Sorry that I offended you’, but started touching her leg again when the three were back in bed.
She ran from the bedroom while Tennant, who was initially naked, followed her out, the trial heard.
The woman said her friend woke up, saw she was upset, and the pair left in a taxi at around 5am following the alleged incident on July 27 2019.
In his evidence, Tennant said he’d touched the back of the woman’s knee in the bed.
He said the woman hadn’t moved to motion him away so he took that as a “green” light to continue.
Tennant’s late grandfather, Colin Tennant, the 3rd Baron Glenconner, once owned Mustique and hosted Princess Margaret and other celebrities with lavish parties on the Caribbean island.
